


The One Where Everybody (?) Lives

by mistr3ssquickly



Series: AU: The One Where Everybody (?) Lives [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, Come see what spilled out, I have a lot of feels where Luke's aunt and uncle are concerned, M/M, Oops my headcanon spilled
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 15:00:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 51,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6570733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistr3ssquickly/pseuds/mistr3ssquickly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke wakes on the third day of the tenth month of the nineteenth Standard Year of his life to an itch in his nose and his bedsheets wrapped around his left ankle from a dream about piloting a starship through a meteor shower, his aunt pushing a cup of cool water into his hands with a quiet insistence that he get up before his uncle comes in and discovers that he’s in bed still.</p><p>It's the last time he'll ever wake up to such normal domesticity, but he doesn't know that. How could he possibly?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sir (?) Ben Kenobi

** Chapter One **

_Sir (?) Ben Kenobi_

Luke wakes on the third day of the tenth month of the nineteenth Standard Year of his life to an itch in his nose and his bedsheets wrapped around his left ankle from a dream about piloting a starship through a meteor shower, his aunt pushing a cup of cool water into his hands with a quiet insistence that he get up before his uncle comes in and discovers that he’s in bed still, the angle of the shadows stretching across the walkway outside his bedroom door telling Luke he’s not slept in _that_ long, but long enough for his uncle to complain about it anyway. He drinks the water and untangles his foot and successfully dresses himself on the second try, yawning behind his hand as he follows his uncle out to the creak and grumble of the Jawas’ sandcrawler, the heat of the day drawing trickles of sweat down his neck, his tunic sticking to his back and bangs plastered to his forehead as he sits in the dark of the workshop cleaning junked ‘droids instead of doing literally anything more useful with his life.

He wakes the following morning from a shallow, fretful sleep and sneaks out of the house before the first sun has fully risen over the horizon, the sands growing warm already as he threatens the new 3PO unit into silence and herds him into the passenger seat of Uncle Owen’s landspeeder, irritation and anxiety twisting like sand-snakes in his gut as he leaves the safety of the farm and follows the faint but unmistakable signal given off by the one non-organic wandering through the dust and dirt and sheer cliff-faces of the Jundland Wastes, the combined threat of Uncle Owen’s temper and the memory of the pretty girl in the holoprojection more powerful than the unfortunately justifiable danger of flying through Tusken territory, armed with little more than an ancient rifle and a flask of water. He finds the missing R2 unit and two too many Tusken Raiders and where, really, that should’ve been the end of him, he comes to with all his limbs intact and a throbbing headache and none other than Ben Kenobi leaning over him instead of a Raider, which is just the best, really, better luck than Luke admits (to himself) he deserves.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Ben says, when Luke explains what he’s doing, sitting on his ass on a sun-warmed rock in the middle of nowhere with a headache so powerful he’s dizzy with it and no one to watch his back but an old man a pair of non-combat ‘droids. “Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time.”

“I think my uncle knows him,” Luke says. “He said he was dead.”

“Oh he’s not dead,” Ben says, his voice warm with laughter, “not yet, anyway.”

“You know him?”

“Of course I know him. He’s me.”

Which seems unbelievable -- beyond coincidence -- and only gets worse as Luke settles in the cool of Ben’s house, listening to Ben talk about fighting in the Clone Wars as a Jedi Knight, of all things, the truly unbelievable ramblings of a delusional old man who moves like his body hurts and claims he has something for Luke despite the fact that Luke’s spoken to him a grand total of maybe three times in his life -- _maybe_ \-- and then offers Luke what looks for all the world like a very shiny hydroregulator because he is, Luke is beginning to suspect, _actually insane._

“Your father would have wanted you to have this when you were old enough, but your uncle wouldn't allow it,” Ben says, looking all kinds of pleased with himself as Luke looks from the ‘regulator to Ben and back again. “He feared you might follow old Obi-Wan on some damn fool idealistic crusade like your father did.”

It takes Luke a longer than it should, really, to remember that Ben _is_ Obi-Wan, the heat and lingering throb of headache dulling his brain. He looks down at the silver cylinder in Ben’s hands and for one long, dusty moment almost, _almost_ asks why his father would have been concerned about him receiving a piece of hardware Luke knew how to make from spare parts by the time he was twelve.

“What is it?” he says instead, taking the hydroregulator when Ben hands it to him.

Ben smiles down at him benevolently. “Your father's lightsaber,” he says, slowly as if speaking to a toddler, which Luke doesn’t much mind, the old man’s slowness giving the words chance to sink in and process. “The weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or random as a blaster. An elegant weapon for a more ... _civilized_ age.”

He settles into his seat once again with a sigh that speaks to his advanced age, radiating calm that washes against Luke’s jolt of surprise like sands against the outer wall of his home when Luke thumbs the button on the hilt of the ‘regulator instead of getting a series of beeps and indicator lights, activates a luminous pale blue blade that buzzes with energy that Luke can _feel_ deep in his bones, reverberating against his soul like a memory, a dream half-forgotten. Nothing like the ‘regulators he’s built and repaired and installed, he thinks, his brain slow to inform him that the thing in his hand is very probably _not_ a hydroregulator, the suspicion creeping up on him that the man seated beside him, watching him as he moves the blade through the air, feeling the static and dust move around it, clinging to his hand as if eager to flee the energy surrounding the weapon, crawling across his skin with fretful urgency, might not be a crazy, senile old hermit after all.

“For over a thousand generations,” Ben says softly, almost as if he’s speaking to himself, “the Jedi Knights were --”

He stops abruptly, eyes going wide and unfocused. Luke disengages the blade of his father’s lightsaber and touches Ben on the shoulder, his mouth open to ask if the old man is all right, but Ben doesn’t let him get the words out, tensing and looking up at him with unrestrained concern in his eyes, color rising in his pale complexion.

“We must go,” he says, grabbing Luke’s wrist with more strength than Luke would have expected him to have. “Quickly now. Come.”

“Where?” Luke says, following Ben out into the crushing heat of mid-morning, jogging a little to keep up as Ben makes a bee-line for the ‘speeder, moving considerably faster than Luke would’ve expected a man of Ben’s age to move.

“Your uncle’s farm,” Ben says, climbing into the passenger seat. “As quickly as you can. We haven’t a moment to lose.”

And there’s something in his voice that pulls at Luke’s heart, fear filling him as he vaults over the edge of the ‘speeder and kicks the ignition to life, concern for the old man sitting beside him drowned in the white noise of worry as he flies across the Wastes at speeds he wouldn’t usually trust himself to go on his skyhopper, and even that isn’t fast enough, no matter how harshly the wind kicks up sand to scratch at his face, his ears popping as he swoops through a drop, cutting off precious seconds from their journey.

The good news is: They see the squadron of Imperial Stormtroopers without the squadron seeing them, which means that they arrive at the Lars homestead with precious minutes to spare, just enough time for Luke to help Ben down from the ‘speeder and warn his aunt and uncle to hide.

The bad news is: The Imperial Squadron still finds the home compound and, when they fail to find Luke and his family or anyone else at home, destroy everything Luke’s family owns in the space of ten minutes, like children throwing a tantrum.

Luke waits, crammed in the unnerving chill of an unused refrigeration hold with his aunt and uncle and Ben for what feels like a full standard hour until his hands and feet and face are numb with cold, his left shoulder sending sparks of pain down his arm and back where he’s got it angled funny against the wall, giving his aunt room to breathe where she’s sandwiched between him and his uncle. The heat of midday makes quick work of the chill and numbness, but the stench of burning that assails his nose when he follows Ben out of the hold settles a heavy dread in his stomach, his aunt’s choked cry of dismay at the scorched walls of their home pulling at his heart, her pain more real than his own, the devastation of her heartbreak and anguish and loss running almost like a mirrored parallel to the numbness he feels as he takes in his surroundings, his mind rejecting what he’s seeing as little more than a dream, an unreality from which he can surely wake if he tries hard enough.

“Why did they do this?” he asks no one in particular, kneeling to put his arm around his aunt, feeling her shake against him as she cries. “What did we do to deserve this?”

Ben looks down at him, his expression haunted but not unkind, his eyes squinted against the glare of the suns off the white-baked clay streaked with soot and char. “The ‘droids,” he says, after a moment. “When did you say you acquired them?”

“Yesterday,” Luke says. “We got them from the Jawas.”

“No way to know how they came to be in possession of them, of course,” Ben says. “Oh dear.”

“And how would _you_ know about our ‘droids?” Uncle Owen says, coming over to cover Luke and Beru with his shadow, his hands on his hips.

“Well,” Ben says, _“that_ is certainly a tale worth telling.”

And it’s a tale he doesn’t hesitate to tell, either, which is how Luke gets himself grounded, despite Ben’s emphasis on how well Luke flew, how his piloting skills got them back to the homestead in time to warn his aunt and uncle of the coming danger. He’s left to help his aunt sweep the charred remnants of furniture and equipment and trinkets and artworks out into the dust glowing with the heat of the day while Uncle Owen takes Ben out across the Wastes to retrieve the ‘droids, left to watch Aunt Beru stand at the front door, her mouth a tight, thin line as the landmarks of domesticity and familiarity and home mingle with the red of the sand before her, obscured in bare minutes by the fretful gusts of wind wrapping around their home compound, all traces gone but the smell of ash and char clinging to the walls when his uncle returns, Ben and both droids in tow, the 3PO unit in pieces still and the R2 unit unresponsive to any verbal command given to it by anyone but Ben. Luke follows them into the workshop without permission and gets a glare for it from his uncle, so he busies himself working on the frayed wires protruding from the 3PO’s shoulder-socket to justify his presence in the workshop, his hands moving more on muscle memory than conscious thought as he listens to his uncle argue with Ben, Ben arguing that the time has come for “the boy” (whom Luke optimistically assumes is himself, for all that he’s a _grown man, thank you,_ not a kid) to fulfill his destiny, while Uncle Owen (loudly) counters that Ben doesn’t know what he’s talking about and shouldn’t be talking about it in the first place.

“You can only control so much, you know,” Ben says, leaning against the soot-blackened nose of an old ‘speeder and stroking his beard, looking every inch the wise old man Luke always insisted he was whenever Biggs wanted to cast him as Crazy Ben of the Wastes, the bad guy in their make-believe adventures. “Sooner or later, fate will catch up to him. One might argue that it would have today, had I not sensed ill intent through the Force and led him home.”

Uncle Owen wags a finger in Ben’s face. “You’ll not hold that over my head,” he says. “We’ve done what you said you couldn’t do. We’ve kept him safe.”

“As he would not have been, had he been here when the squadron arrived,” Ben says, confirming Luke’s suspicions that he’s the _he_ in question. He gets Uncle Owen’s finger wagged in his own face when he pipes up to ask about it, Uncle Owen shoo’ing him out of the workshop, red-faced, as if he’d forgotten Luke was there. Luke takes his frustrations out on the little R2 unit on his way out, kicking it hard enough to hurt his foot, the ‘droid beeping a taunt at him in response.

“This is all _your_ fault,” he tells it, flopping down in the sand, the shade of the workshop affording him some protection from the punishing glare of the suns, the first reddening as it sinks below the horizon. “You and your secrets. What kind of ‘droid keeps _secrets_ from its owner anyway?”

The ‘droid responds with a curt series of beeps and whistles, tipping itself back as it does, its equivalent of drawing itself up to its full indignant height. Luke glares at it, then crumples on a sigh, reaching out to touch the spot he kicked, the metal warm under his fingers.

“A ‘droid with an important mission,” he echoes, tracing the smooth edge of an access panel cover with the tip of his index finger. “Don’t suppose you’ll tell _me_ what that mission is. Give me something to get out of all this trouble you’ve got me in?”

The R2 considers him, its light blinking slowly from blue to red and back again. Then it turns and wheels itself away, radiating the kind of attitude Luke _really_ doesn’t need to get from anyone but _especially_ not a stupid ‘droid with a loyalty complex, not after the day he’s had. He follows it back into the workshop, holding up his hands defensively when Uncle Owen glares at him, silenced mid-sentence from whatever he was saying to Ben, but he doesn’t have to explain that he’s just in there to collect the attitudinous piece of _junk_ Uncle Owen bought from the Jawas because the R2 unit chooses that particular moment to angle itself down and play the recorded projection of the pretty girl in full like Luke _asked it to do hours earlier,_ her message a lot more serious than Luke had expected it to be, speaking of the Empire and attack and information vital to the survival of the Rebellion, the sort of thing Luke and his friends used to make up, fictions cobbled together out of the snippets of news they heard from the adults in their households, the bits of history they learned during their lessons. He hears his own voice, loud in the workshop, insisting that they help the pretty girl in the holoprojection, his mouth running with no thought put behind his words, which makes Uncle Owen even angrier than he already was and puts a smile on Ben’s face that speaks to a victory thoroughly won, and Luke’s grounded already so he kind-of-sort-of figures it doesn’t matter if he gets grounded more, arguing that Uncle Owen’s wrong about _not_ helping even before his uncle’s had a chance to say anything.

“I’m not saying she doesn’t need help, Luke,” Uncle Owen says, raising his voice loudly enough that Luke actually hears him and shuts up, partly because his uncle can out-shout him any day of the week, but mostly out of surprise that his uncle’s _agreeing_ with him. “I’m saying _you’re_ not the one to go save her. She’s asking Ben here for help. Not you.”

Luke looks at Ben. Ben’s old. He looks at his uncle. His uncle’s old, too. Not as old as Ben, but. Certainly not young enough to save anyone.

“I want to help,” he says.

“You’ll get yourself killed,” his uncle counters.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Ben says, just as Luke’s opening his mouth to counter that he _won’t,_ which puts a scowl on Uncle Owen’s face and makes Luke’s heart skip a beat with excitement. “The boy has more of his father in him than you might guess. With proper guidance, I think he could manage just fine.”

“I can,” Luke says.

“You _won’t,”_ Uncle Owen says, “and that’s final.” He points a menacing finger at Ben. “And don’t you go filling his head with nonsense. He’s needed here, where he belongs.”

“He _belongs_ with the Alliance,” Ben says, “where he can be the balance we have so desperately needed to counteract his father’s power. There is no other who can do this; only the son of Anakin Skywalker can bring balance to the Force and begin to make things _right_ again.”

Uncle Owen pulls himself up to his full height, towering menacingly over Ben’s seated form. “His father was little more than a merchant,” he says, his voice low and threatening, not the loud bellow of temper Luke’s expecting, which sends a chill down Luke’s spine and doesn’t seem to affect Ben in the slightest. “The boy’s destiny is his _own._ Not pre-determined, and _not_ yours to decide.”

Ben holds his gaze for a long moment, then shakes his head, chuckling as if Uncle Owen had just told him a joke. He looks at Luke, his eyes twinkling mischief and perhaps a little madness, eyebrows raised into the disheveled wisps of his thin white hair. “Is that what they’ve told you, Luke?” he says. “That your father was a merchant on some starship, out among the stars?”

“Yeah?”

Ben scoffs. “Your father was a Jedi Knight, same as I was,” he says. “Best starpilot in the galaxy, and a cunning warrior. How else do you suppose he’d’ve come to be in possession of the lightsaber I gave you earlier?”

Luke takes an instinctive step back when Uncle Owen whips around to stare at him, puts his hand protectively over the ‘saber he clipped to his belt hours earlier. He curls his fingers around the hilt when his uncle advances on him, demanding that he _hand that over right now,_ Luke pulling the weapon from his belt and holding it between himself and his uncle, his thumb hovering over the button. An open threat.

“Tell me the truth,” he says, when his uncle freezes mid-step and looks down at the ‘saber, the blade dormant but waiting, potential energy humming around Luke’s mind like a swarm of diptera sand-flies, warming the pad of his thumb like a band of midday sun. “Is he lying about my father? Or were you? Tell me.”

And as the words leave his mouth he can _feel_ his uncle’s thoughts, almost, running parallel to his own, anger and fear and hatred burning like jagged sandstone tearing through skin and scraping bone, scattered thoughts leaping and clinging and falling away like sand in the static of a building storm, clouding Luke’s mind, filling him until he’s dizzy with it, the room swaying under him.

 _“Tell me,”_ he repeats, staring down the dully reflective length of the lightsaber to his uncle’s face, pain and anger twisting familiar features into a scowl, as ugly as it is foreign.

A muscle twitches in Uncle Owen’s jaw. He looks away from Luke’s gaze with an audible sigh, wordless with frustration, his hands clenching at his sides, fists tight with strength Luke has never in his nineteen years ever, _ever_ feared, his own temper always far brighter and hotter than Uncle Owen’s, even when his uncle was well and truly furious with him over something. And Luke’s lowering the lightsaber in response, really he is, his rational mind catching up with his impetuous burst of temper, but his aunt doesn’t see that, she just sees him pointing a weapon at his uncle, and the _shriek_ she makes in response mere inches from Luke’s ear startles him so badly that he fumbles the lightsaber as his heart does its best to exit his body through his breastbone, his elbow scraping the rough wall of the workshop behind him as he reacts on animal instinct and trips over his own stupid feet in his hurry to put as much distance between himself and the unexpected noise as he can, his aunt bearing down on him as he loses his balance and lands squarely on his ass.

“Lukas Lars Skywalker don’t you _ever_ point a weapon at your uncle,” she says, bending down to snatch the lightsaber from Luke’s hand with absolutely no difficulty and no resistance whatsoever from Luke, the sickening stink of char and ash clinging to her clothes filling Luke’s senses as she straightens to loom over him, her fury radiating around her with physical force he can feel abrading his skin. “How _dare_ you raise a hand to your parent? We raised you _better_ than that. And where did you even _get_ such a --”

She cuts herself off, turning to Ben with a look of menace so chilling that Luke could swear the temperature inside the workshop actually drops, Ben putting his hands up in a gesture of surrender as she advances on him a step.

 _“You,”_ she says.

“It is his _birthright,”_ Ben says.

“To carry a deadly weapon with no training, no knowledge of how to use it safely?” Aunt Beru all but yells.

“He’d no more hurt his uncle than I would join the Emperor’s cause,” Ben says, lowering his hands and tucking them into the sleeves of his robe. He looks briefly at Luke before returning his gaze to meet Aunt Beru’s, a fond smile warming across his weathered features. “I can tell, you know. He’s grown into a good man. You’ve raised him well.”

Aunt Beru stares at him in silence for a very long moment, then turns on her heel and storms out of the workshop, Luke’s lightsaber still clutched in her hand. Luke pushes himself to his feet, brushing ash and sand and dust from his trousers, his face heating when he looks up and finds his uncle and Ben both watching him, the silence left in his aunt’s wake stifling.

“I’m sorry,” he says to his uncle.

Uncle Owen considers him for a moment, the muscle of his jaw flexing. Then he sighs, his entire _being_ seeming to crumple on that one long exhalation. He looks oddly small, like that. Old. Like clothes cast aside, rumpled in the corner. “As am I,” he says. He shoots Ben a filthy look, then reaches for Luke, squeezing Luke’s shoulder. “Come on. We need to talk. Somewhere safe.”

\---

Mos Eisley isn’t what Luke would call _safe,_ all things considered, but that’s where they go, he and his uncle and his aunt and Ben and the ‘droids somehow fitting into Uncle Owen’s landspeeder and Luke’s skyhopper, both of which Uncle Owen sells the minute they reach town, muttering when Luke objects to the sale of his beloved ‘hopper about it being easier to mind credits than it is to track down stolen craft, his feelings towards Mos Eisley as overflowing as ever with distrust and distaste. He rents two rooms at an inn not far from the center of town and crowds Ben into the same one he pushes Luke and Beru into, his face set in a disapproving scowl as he locks the door and crosses the room with a determined, measured stride.

“Better to get this over with sooner rather than later,” he says to Ben, sinking down onto the sagging mattress of the bed closest to the door. “Go on, then, do as you will. Tell the boy about his father.”

Luke’s heart leaps in his chest, anticipation and apprehension and discomfort winding through his veins, replacing his reticence to lose his ‘hopper, energy pricking at his nerve-endings like tiny, potent electroshocks as he sits next to his uncle on the edge of the bed and looks at Ben, trying his best to not be too obvious about how much he’s struggling to breathe normally, his throat tight and pulse racing, the unreality of the day heightening the thrill of hearing secrets, and secrets about himself, no less.

Ben considers him for a long moment without speaking, unblinking, his gaze pushing like an oddly physical presence against the back of Luke’s mind, strangely similar to the pull of Aunt Beru’s hand on the back of his neck when he would get headaches as a child, the pressure building at the base of his skull an uncannily accurate predictor of sandstorms, remedied only by sleep and the gentle touch of his aunt’s hand, working the tension from him.

“Your father,” Ben says, finally, his words soft and measured, flowing like sand across the room as the pressure at the back of Luke’s mind recedes. “As I told you earlier today, he was a Jedi Knight, bound in service to the Old Republic. A passionate, powerful man. Dedicated to learning and growing and defending what was right. Much like you, Luke, from what I’ve seen today.” He offers Luke a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, dropping his gaze when Luke is slow to respond in kind. “He was a good friend. A student of mine, though I myself was but a student when I took him under my wing. My teacher recognized in him much potential and, upon my teacher’s passing, it fell to me to train your father.

“Much happened, in the years I spent fighting and learning alongside Anakin Skywalker, too much for me to recount to you now, but you must know that he _was_ a good man, and a good friend, and that he suffered greatly in his youth, far more than most could stand to suffer in a lifetime. And when the temptation of power called to him, power that he believed would allow him to protect himself and those he loved from the pain he had suffered, the loss he had endured, your father fell prey to it, and, from a certain point of view, lost his life in doing so.”

He leans forward, his voice dropping a little in volume. “You have heard, I’m sure, that a young Jedi named Darth Vader helped to hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights, seduced by the Dark Side of the Force, bringing about the end of the Old Republic and the rise of the Empire, and that he now serves as the right hand to Emperor Palpatine, yes?”

Luke nods. “I’ve heard of the Emperor and his pet sorcerer.”

Ben frowns. “A Jedi is far more powerful and dangerous than any sorcerer could hope to be, Luke,” he says. “You have that power inside you; the Force is strong in your family. You have it, as I’ve mentioned, just as your father did, and does. Your father, who took on the name of _Vader,_ which is the word for _father_ in an ancient, dead language, when he turned from the Light and joined the Emperor, seduced by the promise of power, enslaved by the power of hatred and fear. Your father is Darth Vader.”

He quiets, watching Luke unblinking. Waiting for a reaction, Luke realizes, the notion surfacing slowly through the buzz of numbness, immediate dismissal sitting at odds with acceptance, brushing close against the odd sense that he knew already, the hollow lack of surprise echoing as he repeats Ben’s words to himself, expecting to feel ... _something._ Anything, really.

“So he’s your brother,” he hears himself say as he turns to his uncle, his own voice distant, almost as if someone else’s.

“Half-brother,” Uncle Owen says, “through our mother.”

Luke nods, his mind apparently happy to accept that truth, as well. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Uncle Owen shifts uncomfortably. Probably his back bothering him, some blasé part of Luke’s brain reasons, another part of his mind filtering an argument in contrast that it’s not likely a physical discomfort that’s got his uncle fidgeting. “Not really the sort of thing one tells a child, is it,” he says. “And with you so interested in joining the Academy, we -- we thought it’d be best if you believed what we’d told you when you were little. No harm in it.”

“He could have been training, had he known earlier,” Ben puts in. “In the Old Republic, Jedi were trained from a very young age.”

“And you know what happened to them because of it,” Uncle Owen growls.

Luke looks from him to Ben and back again. “What happened?”

“They were slaughtered,” Uncle Owen says when Ben hesitates, clearly uncomfortable. “Children. Dozens of them. Murdered right in the Jedi Temple by one of their own.”

 _By your father,_ he doesn’t say, but Luke feels the words all the same, reverberating in his soul. He waits for it to hurt, to frighten him.

Nothing happens.

“What does the training involve?” he says, looking at Ben.

“Learning to become one with the Force, in the broadest of terms,” Ben says. “Training of the mind and the body, together as one. Gaining familiarity with the past and the future through study of the present and of presence, your own and others’ within the Force.”

Which all sounds immensely preferable to sitting in the kitchen doing arithmetic in long-form under Aunt Beru’s watchful eye, to Luke. “Can _you_ train me?”

His heart sinks when Ben shakes his head. “I am old, and I’ve hidden myself for so many years now, I wouldn’t trust myself to show you much beyond the basics,” he says on a sigh heavy with regret, a strange thread of anger winding its way along Luke’s heart, distant as if Ben’s feelings were somehow seeping into his own. “But there is a great master, the Jedi who instructed me and my master. I intend to take you to him, and there see you trained to your full potential.”

“Do you, now,” Uncle Owen says.

Ben leans back in his chair. “He’ll be safer there than here on Tatooine. You’ve gotten yourselves noticed by the Imperial Army, in association with the Alliance, no less, and they’ve not the reputation of forgetting anything of that sort. Ever.”

“Where is this great Jedi master?” Luke says, the fear he’s been expecting to feel starting to curl around the edges of his consciousness.

“The Dagobah System,” Ben says. “Far from here.”

“And how do you propose to get him there?” Uncle Owen wants to know.

Ben hesitates before he answers, stuffing his hands back into his sleeves again. A habit he has when he’s nervous, Luke realizes, a tell like the way Bigg’s whiny cousin Gavin starts rubbing his nose when he’s on the verge of throwing a tantrum about some stupid thing or another.

“We _are_ in Mos Eisley,” Ben says. “Smugglers are a credit a dozen here. Always happy to take on legal transport work, so long as the pay is agreeable to them.”

“You’re proposing we _smuggle_ Luke out of here, to train against his father, on an _illegal transport.”_

“I am.”

_“Are you out of your goddamn mind.”_

Ben laughs. “Oh very likely yes,” he says.

“What about the girl?” Luke says. “The one from the holoprojection. She still needs our help.”

“And she shall have it, once we’ve seen you safely delivered to Master Yoda,” Ben says, which is enough for Uncle Owen, apparently, the bed shifting once again as he sits down. “She has asked that I deliver your little ‘droid to her father on Alderaan. Unlike Dagobah, Alderaan is not far from here, with relatively safe jumps for lightspeed travel. Any smuggler would be happy to take on such an assignment, and from Alderaan, we can secure transport for you to Dagobah via considerably more legal channels.”

“The Rebellion,” Uncle Owen says.

“The Alliance, yes. Friends of the Jedi Order, and stronger than you might guess.”

Uncle Owen snorts in dismissal. “I don’t like it,” he says.

“I’d not expected you would,” Ben says. “But it is the only way. And he’ll not be going alone, of course -- you’ll be accompanying him. As far as Alderaan, anyway.” He meets Uncle Owen’s surprise with a serene smile, the closest he’s come since Luke first saw him in the Wastes to looking like the Jedi Knight he claims to have been. “As I’ve said, Tatooine is no longer safe for you and your family. For good or for ill, you are tied now to Luke’s destiny, just as surely as he is tied to it himself.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_Notes_ :

This is what happens when you’re sick out of your gourd and start thinking about how different Luke Skywalker’s life would have been if his aunt and uncle had survived beyond the quarter-mark of the original _Star Wars_ film. Almost like the butterfly effect, I am (obviously) of the opinion that it would’ve made an enormous difference, and then I got all feisty and wrote a multi-chapter story about it.

Oops.

(Also ilu Aunt Beru, why aren’t you in the movies more, you are the best.)

I’ve rather enjoyed working on this little project and I hope that you will enjoy it as well. More to come very soon!


	2. Captain (?) Han Solo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben cuts in before Luke suffers any more ridicule, distracts the smuggler with an offer of more money than the bastard originally asked for, to be paid upon delivery. And Luke thinks it might be his imagination, but it occurs to him that Ben is most likely lying about paying. That he’s not planning to pay the balance owed.
> 
> Which is _just fine._ The smuggler’s not even worth what he’s getting paid anyway.

** Chapter Two **

_Captain (?) Han Solo_

Luke wakes early the following morning from a nightmare about fire and smoke forming into a blade as bright as the blood-red of the second sun sinking below the horizon in the evening, its hilt wrapped in darkness that breathes echoes that reverberate in Luke’s skull, power throbbing around him as the blade slices through him, navel to throat, the world falling away in a rush as he jolts to consciousness, his heart pounding and skin tacky with sweat. He slips from the room without agenda or destination, wanting little more than some fresh air and light, away from his uncle’s snoring and the smell of ash still clinging to his aunt’s clothes, the remnants of his nightmare lurking in the corners of the unfamiliar room, cloaked in the shadows. He jumps a little when he pulls the door closed behind himself in complete silence and turns to find Ben Kenobi watching him, the old man seated beneath the weathered archway over the doors, his legs folded before him in a meditative pose.

“You look as if you’ve not slept,” Ben says by way of greeting, for all that he’s apparently been awake longer than Luke has, by a few minutes at the very least. “Come, sit with me. Let me show you something interesting.”

Luke does as he’s told, settling across from Ben on the rough sandstone in a mirror of Ben’s posture. His legs don’t bend like Ben’s do, his knees angled higher above the ground than the old man’s, and his back registers immediate offense at the stretch in his hips, the pull of muscles tight from poor sleep in an unfamiliar bed.

Luke endures.

“Close your eyes,” Ben says, “and try to reach out with your feelings. Think of it as if you were projecting them, like your little ‘droid did with his message from the princess.”

Luke raises his eyebrows. “I didn’t know she was a princess,” he says.

“Oh yes,” Ben says. “Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, first and only daughter of the great Bail Organa.” He laughs softly, as if he can tell how his words make Luke’s heart beat a little faster, the fledgling crush he’d developed for the pretty girl in the holoprojection doubling in his chest, almost painful in its intensity. “I’m sure you’ll have the opportunity to meet her someday,” he says, “and before that day, I will tell you all about her, everything I know. But for now, do as I say. Close your eyes and stretch out with your mind. Reach with your feelings, with your heart.”

Luke obeys, the back of his neck prickling as he closes his eyes, the quiet of Mos Eisley coming at odds with the stories he’s heard of the place, the warnings his uncle and Biggs’ parents repeated like a litany whenever the name of the town came up, promises of violence and theft and suffering wrapped around general admonition against visiting, even when Luke and Biggs were of age, old enough to venture out on their own. The worries of protective adults, sharp in contrast with Ben’s apparent comfort sitting alone and exposed in the grey light of early morning, present themselves as the clearest emotion at the fore of Luke’s mind so he latches on to them, to the twist and burn of fear and animal apprehension, the residual adrenaline and anxiety from his nightmare still present, like words etched into sandstone, worn away but visible still, casting shadows against the morning light. He pushes at the mental images associated in his mind with the emotions shifting and pushing in his chest, imagining them stretching out like the red light glaring from the lightsaber in his dream, projecting ash and smoke like the holoprojection cast in the dust of the workshop, and where it feels kind of silly, not unlike pretending to cast a spell on Gavin and having Biggs laugh at him for looking more like he was about to throw up than cast any sort of magic, he can feel ... _something._ An energy not his own, crawling along the edges of his projected mental image, cool like the sand gone blue under the shadows cast by the first sun not yet risen.

“What you feel is the Dark Side of the Force,” Ben says, his voice soft and reverberating, surrounding Luke like the morning breeze. “Fear, hatred, and aggression feed it like oxygen to a flame. Acknowledge it, seeks its roots. Quench it with your knowledge of it, of its source.”

Luke peeks at Ben with one eye and finds the old man looking at him, unblinking. Closes his eyes tight in a hurry, fluster and embarrassment scattering his thoughts like sand kicked up in the ignition blast beneath a landspeeder. He thinks about his nightmare, draws as much memory of it as he can to the fore of his mind, struggling against the desire not to think about it, not to remember it, self-preservation at odds with morbid curiosity. In the end, he succeeds, his own frustrations with himself and his cowardice bringing back the memory of terror in a sudden rush, the answering energy dimmer than it was the first time, weaker in comparison to the red glow of fear, the thrum of adrenaline under his skin as he relives memory and imagination.

 _Acknowledge it, seek its roots_ whispers against his mind. _Quench it with your knowledge of it._

He pushes himself up, straightening his spine, the hard stone under his tailbone unpleasant but grounding, real. More real than the memories he replays over and over in his mind, the real blending in seamlessly with the imagined, the distant glint of sunlight off moulded white duraplast armor and the curling blackness of smoke he could see only in his mind’s eye as he crouched in the cramped, cold dark of the refrigeration hold breathing the mingled fears of the adults who’d soothed him from nightmares over the long years of his childhood, the old man he’d once feared himself, drawn into the fictional tales told by his friend. He stares into the fears until they threaten to overwhelm him and opens his eyes without conscious thought or intention when they do, his heart in his throat and sweat gathering at the back of his neck, his breath coming short as if he’d just run a mile.

Ben reaches across the space between him and pats him on the hand. “Good,” he says. “It comes more easily with practice. Try again.”

Luke swallows and closes his eyes. “All right,” he says, and reaches out again.

\---

He hasn’t succeeded by the time the first sun has risen and his aunt and uncle with it, Uncle Owen grumpy but quiet, Aunt Beru casting him concerned glances every so often as they share a meal in one of the shabby little cantinas not far from the inn. Neither asks about Luke’s time spent with Ben that morning but they’re wondering about it, Luke suspects, his aunt sticking close to him as they walk back to the inn, her hand wrapping tight around his forearm when Ben casually mentions taking him along to see about finding transport to Alderaan.

“He’ll be perfectly safe with me,” Ben says when Uncle Owen objects. “He’s not known here, so far as I would assume. You’ve not brought him here with you in the past, have you?”

Uncle Owen scowls at him. “No one in their right mind brings a _child_ to Mos Eisley,” he says.

“Precisely,” Ben says.

And that, somehow, is enough, Aunt Beru pulling Luke into a despairing sort of hug and murmuring a prayer of blessing against his ear before he sets out with Ben across the shimmering sands to the center of town. It’s more active than he’d’ve expected it to be, so late into the morning, the heat of day pounding down already with intensity that threatens the health and well-being of most lifeforms, save the precious few native to Tatooine, Hutts and Jawas and Tusken Raiders, and none of them are out where he can see them, anyway, though he’s careful to keep his gaze downcast, mindful of his Uncle Owen’s stories about the fate that befalls anyone who stares in Mos Eisley, cautionary tales that used to make Aunt Beru frown a lot and gave Luke nightmares. He’s targeted anyway in the cantina Ben selects as a good spot for finding a pilot, which is absolutely _terrifying_ in the heat of the moment and embarrassing afterwards, Luke’s skin prickling as he thinks how he must have looked, freezing in fear and needing to be saved by an old man in frayed robes, nothing at all the valiant fighter he’s pretended to be in his make-believe adventures, safe on the family farm. It’s enough to keep his mouth shut until the smuggler Ben selects names his price for transporting them all to Alderaan, the price so high that it’s all Luke can do to keep from lunging across the pock-marked table between them to show off some of the fighting skills he’s _pretty_ sure he’s developed over the years of play-sparring with Biggs, his temper surging through him with painful force.

“Sure, you could buy your own ship,” the smuggler says, rolling his eyes when Luke manages to restrain himself from physical violence, only voicing his objections, “but who’s gonna fly it? _You?”_

“I _could,”_ Luke says.

The smuggler rolls his eyes again, a grin curling his teeth over his lips as he does. Ben cuts in before Luke suffers any more ridicule, distracts the smuggler with an offer of more money than the bastard originally asked for, to be paid upon delivery. And Luke thinks it might be his imagination, but it occurs to him that Ben is most likely lying about paying. That he’s not planning to pay the balance owed.

Which is _just fine._ The smuggler’s not even worth what he’s getting paid anyway.

 _Especially_ once Luke gets a look at his ship, some hours later, his aunt smacking him on the arm when he voices his opinions out loud, his tone carried well in the acoustics of the spaceport. “What?” he says, rubbing the spot his aunt struck. “It is!”

“Mind your manners,” his aunt says.

Which makes Luke feel like he’s five again and makes the smuggler laugh at him, which would just _really piss him right off,_ save that the crooked grin on the smuggler’s face drops into a look of panic that Luke can _feel_ before Luke has the chance to come up with something appropriately scathing to say, blaster bolts streaking red across the spaceport just as he turns to see what’s got the smuggler looking scared. He yelps and follows his aunt and uncle and the stupid ‘droids up the gangplank leading into the belly of the ancient, rusted freighter the smuggler claims is something _other_ than a piece of junk, turns to make sure Ben’s following them, which he is, along with the smuggler’s enormous first mate, but Luke’s moment of hesitation is still enough to earn him an unfortunate front-row seat to see the smuggler take a blaster-shot to the leg just as he’s turning to run up the gangplank, his sharp cry of surprise bitten off as he stumbles, the gangplank reverberating with the force of him not quite catching himself as he falls. He lets out a string of words in a dialect Luke doesn’t recognize that he intones appropriately to communicate the sentiment behind them just fine, grabbing desperately at one of the hydraulic struts and pulling himself up towards Luke. He doesn’t look scared or pained so much as he looks _angry,_ the fury in his eyes strangely familiar to Luke, known like the red anger from his training session with Ben that morning. Luke ducks down the gangplank and holds out his hand, gets a good grip on him and pulls with all of his strength, but the smuggler’s heavier than he looks, probably weighed down with all kinds of illegal stuff, Luke’s mind reasons irrationally as he grits his teeth and pulls again, successfully hauling the smuggler along with him this time, the both of them wincing in the onslaught of laser-fire peppering the ship and port walls around them, the stink of ozone heavy in the air.

“Chewie, get us out of here,” the smuggler yells, once Luke’s got him up the gangplank and into the dim lighting of the ship’s interior, breathing hard and holding onto the smuggler harder, the man’s body shaking against him as Luke holds him up, steadying him as he punches the button that makes the gangplank retract and seal. “Fast, before they get someone out here to shoot at us who’s ranked high enough to _not_ be a moron.” He shifts in Luke’s grip, sucking in a sharp breath between his teeth. “Get me to the cockpit, kid. Chewie can’t get her to lightspeed alone.”

Later, Luke will look back on the memory of helping the captain of the _Millennium Falcon_ down the main corridor to the cockpit, Han leaning on him, blood streaking the metal grated floors, Luke’s aunt and uncle and old Ben stepping aside, watching them, and he’ll be proud of himself, proud of what he must have looked like, the savior of their savior, strong and capable and brave in the face of danger.

In the moment, however, he feels weak and short and frankly not terribly pleased with the dead weight growling at him to _go faster, do you want us to get blown to kingdom come_ as he makes his way down the seemingly endless corridor to the cramped, outdated cockpit of the ancient freighter that doesn’t at _all_ look like it has anything close to lightspeed in its future. He helps the smuggler into the empty flight-seat closest to the controls and sticks around to see what’s what, impressed despite himself when the ship actually takes off, and takes off at a decent clip, at that, the smuggler groaning in pain as they angle up sharply to escape Tatooine’s atmosphere, his jaw tightly clenched and face going sallow as the ship shakes around them, the blackness of space eating away at the blue of the sky, opening like a mouth to swallow them in blackness unlike anything Luke has ever seen before.

He _has_ seen a man lose consciousness before, though, knows well enough that that’s what’s likely about to go down with the smuggler going ashen in the captain’s seat, the man’s hands shaking as he reaches out to punch buttons, his voice weak when his co-pilot growls _(literally_ growls, it doesn’t sound like words to Luke’s ears at all) something at him and gets _yeah, pal, just as soon as we’re in hyperspace_ in answer. The wookiee growls something else in answer to that, something that makes the smuggler look up at Luke and _laugh,_ giving his co-pilot an incredulous look.

“You’ve gotta be kiddin’ me,” he says weakly.

The wookiee honks something in answer, then reaches out with one enormous hairy ... paw? hand? and pushes Luke forward, hard enough that Luke stumbles over his own feet and nearly ends up falling in the smuggler’s lap.

The smuggler sighs. “Chewie wants to know if you were blowin’ smoke up our asses earlier when you said you could fly,” he says.

Doubt and confidence have a brief but furious war in Luke’s mind. “I can do it,” he says.

“You’re absolutely sure?”

Luke isn’t. “Yeah.”

Another sigh. “Fine. Then get me outta this chair and get us outta here. You understand Shyriiwook?”

“What?”

“Nevermind. I’ll stay up here and translate. C’mon, hurry _up.”_

Luke helps him out of the flight-seat and into one of the less comfortable-looking seats behind, the smuggler batting at him irritably when Luke tries to secure the safety belts around him, shoving Luke away with more strength than Luke’s expecting, the stench of his blood almost nauseating as Luke takes over the captain’s flight-seat, the rise and twist of his stomach distracting Luke from pulling up what he remembers about Corellian freighters, his fascination with the power poured into their engineering making them one of his favorites to read about in his early teens.

“This is a 1300, right?” he says over his shoulder.

The wookiee trills at him. “That’s a yes,” the smuggler says. “Ever flown one before?”

 _In my daydreams when I was a kid_ is the last thing Luke will ever, _ever_ admit anywhere the smug bastard bleeding behind him might be within earshot to hear. “I know how they work,” he says instead.

“Uh-huh,” the smuggler says. “Let Chewie handle the prep for lightspeed. Take care of the nav ‘til we jump. You’ve got two Imperial Cruisers out there. Let ‘em get a single shot off on my ship and you’ll be floating home.” He shifts in his flight-seat, hissing through his teeth in pain. “Chewie, you got the calc?”

The wookiee growls something that makes the smuggler grumble _all right, all right, just askin’,_ the two of them quieting as bolts of sickly green flash past the cockpit, probing laser-fire from the cruisers that Luke dodges with absolutely no trouble, the rickety old freighter responding to the subtlest push of his hand against the ‘stick without any delay or complaint. He concentrates the shields over the rear of the ship and has his hand on the lever, ready to dive and roll, when he feels pressure against his breastbone and looks up, his eyes going wide and ears popping as he watches space _bend_ around them, the prick-points of stars spreading and smearing like bright streaks of engine grease as the ship moves into hyperspace, the jump to lightspeed more jarring and awe-inspiring than Luke’s wildest dreams had ever led him to believe it could be. He swallows hard and sinks back into the flight-seat as the ship evens out and settles into a quiet hum, his eyes wide as he stares at the fretful interplay of light and darkness around him, his heart pounding with embarrassment when a quiet laugh from the hairy creature beside him distracts him from the view, his cheeks burning with the shame of his inexperience put so blatantly on display.

“You think this was _what?”_ the smuggler says in response to a rumble from his first mate. “This was his -- oh you have gotta be _kidding_ me. Really? _I let you talk me into lettin’ a planet-jockey space-virgin fly my ship?”_

Luke doesn’t kick him on his way out of the cockpit, but it’s a near thing, the smuggler’s wobbling shout of _unbelievable!_ following him like a slap across the face as he joins his aunt and uncle in the main galley, Aunt Beru fretting over him the instant she sees the blood smeared across the tan of his boot and up his trousers, her worries only increasing when Luke tries to reassure her that it isn’t _his_ blood, that it came from the swindling jackass they apparently paid to do little more than sit around and bleed and curse. She storms out of the galley without responding to Luke’s reassurances that _he’s fine, probably,_ a frown pinching her features as she goes, and Luke follows her, mostly out of morbid curiosity, barely swallowing the laugh that tries to push up his throat at the look on the smuggler’s face when he doesn’t quite sit up fast enough to cover the fact that he’s been curled over himself in his flight-seat with his head between his knees like some fainting kid while his co-pilot assesses the still-bleeding wound on his leg. Which Luke is willing to grudgingly admit looks _awful,_ but.

“Do you have a medi-kit aboard?” Aunt Beru asks him, trying to sound kind, but Luke knows well enough to see through the act, recognizing the hard edge her voice takes on when she’s on the verge of a lecture, not to be messed with.

“It’s fine,” the smuggler says. “We’ve got it.”

His co-pilot says something in response, an argument if Luke were to hazard a guess, just based on the tone and the way the smuggler glares up at the wookiee looming over him, the ashen color of his face considerably diminishing the menace in his expression.

 _“Fine,”_ he says. “Show her where it is, then. Don’t need you shedding in my wound anyway.”

The wookiee barks what Luke is _certain_ has to be an insult and leaves the cockpit, returning with a medi-kit bigger than any Luke’s ever seen before, its half-full but varied stock tell-tale of how often the smuggler needs to be patched up. Serves him right, really, Luke thinks, leaning against the curved doorway to watch his aunt clean the ripped, burnt skin around the deeper gouge oozing blood, the sight of which, even as far away as he is, making him feel dizzy, his stomach churning threateningly against his ribs. The smuggler makes a strangled noise when Aunt Beru informs him quietly that he’s suffered some muscle damage, almost to the bone, then whimpers like a child and neatly passes out when she presses a bacta patch against the center of the wound, his first mate quick to catch him and keep him upright, keeping him still while Aunt Beru works, as unaffected by blood as ever, years of tending to Uncle Owen after farm equipment accidents steadying her hands as she cleans and patches the skin torn more shallowly around the deepest gouge, smearing bacta gel in an even coating before wiping the smuggler’s blood from her hands on an anti-bac cloth, the smuggler coming to as she wraps gauze around his calf, the thick white material covering the ugliness of the wound, only the blood drying thick in the squashed fabric of his sock left as testament to how badly he was injured.

“Thanks,” the smuggler grumbles, leaning away from the wookiee’s grip to survey the bandage on his leg, his face still a sickly shade of grey.

“You’re welcome,” Aunt Beru says. “Captain ...?”

“Solo,” the smuggler says. “Call me Han.”

“Han,” she repeats. “Thank you for getting us away from Tatooine safely.”

The smuggler -- Han -- dips his head in a nod. “Sooner we get you to Alderaan, the better,” he says. “I’m startin’ to think the lot’a you are bad luck.”

Aunt Beru laughs quietly, a polite, fake laugh that Luke doesn’t like one bit, but he keeps his mouth shut about it, his manners kept in check only by Aunt Beru’s presence, the lingering vulnerability lurking under Han’s uneven smirk as he pushes himself to his feet, wincing in pain as he tries to put weight on his wounded leg, his hand tightly gripping the flight-seat as he limps over and take the helm of his ship once again.

\---

Luke is training with Ben in the galley hours later, long after his aunt and uncle have retired for the night, when Han comes limping in, wearing the same shirt he’s been wearing since Luke first spotted him in the cantina but a fresh pair of trousers and a pair of ratty leather slippers, which Luke suspects must be more comfortable than the boots against his injury, even with the hours he’s had for the bacta to mend the skin, to seal over the exposed nerves. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do much more than sigh as he lowers himself into one of the chairs at the edge of the room, but he’s distracting all the same, makes Luke self-conscious as he engages the blade of his lightsaber, eager to show off what he’s learnt about anticipating the laser-blasts from the training ‘droid Ben brought along with him, flushing fast with embarrassment when his eagerness gets the better of him, the ‘droid’s laser-bolt leaving a stinging welt where it strikes Luke, right on the ass.

“Don’t trust your eyes. They can deceive you,” Ben says, acting as if Han isn’t there, laughing at the both of them. It just gets worse when Ben blindfolds him and doesn’t tell Han to fuck off, Luke’s nerves prickling as he engages the blade of his ‘saber and waits to hear the hum of the training ‘droid rising into the air, its gears whirring as it considers him, selecting from its randomization program the angle of attack. And it’s probably just because he’s nervous, because of the strain of the past two days, but he can almost _see_ the ‘droid, despite the darkness of the blindfold against his closed eyes, his mind forming for him the hard metal exoskeleton of the ‘droid moving the shape of the air around it, like an ayotochtli making a path through the sands at the bottom of Beggars’ Canyon, the shape of Han slouched behind him coming into focus next, dimmer but recognizable, Luke’s senses picking up the barest movement of the man’s chest disturbing the air around him as he breathes, the twitch of his index finger, the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows.

When the ‘droid prepares to fire, Luke can feel it. See it, almost, for all that his eyes are closed behind the blindfold still. He doesn’t swipe at it so much as put the blade of his lightsaber between his body and the trajectory of the laser-bolt, does it again when the ‘droid fires a second time, a third. It beeps at him and lowers back to the floor of the galley after it’s fired off ten shots as it’s been programmed to do, all of which Luke was able to intercept, the ‘droid’s motors going quiet as it goes into power-reserve mode, the hum of the ship pouring in to fill the silence left in the ‘droid’s wake.

“Very good,” Ben says, when Luke removes the blindfold and looks at him.

“Looked like luck to me,” Han says.

Ben treats Luke to the sort of smile that takes years off of him in an instant, shades of a mischievous boy who’s just gotten away with something peeking out around the white hair and age-weathered skin. He turns the same smile on Han, folding his hands into the sleeves of his robes, unbothered by the condescending look Han gives him in answer. “In my experience,” he says, “there is no such thing as _luck.”_

Han snorts. “The only folks I’ve known who believed in all-powerful forces beyond our control instead of blind, stupid luck were sore losers sittin’ at the gambling table watching their credits go home in someone else’s pockets, and sorry criminals gettin’ hauled away in chains for not runnin’ fast enough when they had the chance to run.” He shrugs. “Never occurred to ‘em that maybe their luck’d just run out. That they could’a done better for themselves if they’d been smarter.”

“Or maybe you’re just afraid of something you don’t understand,” Ben says, not unkindly. “The loss of control is a terrifying thing. Understandably not an experience for which one would wish.”

He darts a glance at Han’s leg as he speaks. Han frowns and shifts in his seat, wincing a little as he tucks his leg under his chair, away from Ben’s knowing gaze. He keeps his mouth shut for the rest of Luke’s exercises after that, leaves without a word when Ben sets the blindfold and training ‘droid aside and tells Luke to work on meditation, Han’s discomfort radiating around him like a solar flare as he goes, rippling against Luke’s consciousness, the bands of pride Luke’s stretching out to feel as Han walks away tarnished with it, bleached like bone left out too long in the sun, brittle when he reaches out to touch them again, as if they might break under the dry ache of Han’s rejection of their realness, their validity.

“I know I felt something,” he says aloud when he opens his eyes, frustrated, and finds Ben sitting across from him, eyes closed, maybe meditating, maybe dozing.

Ben smiles without opening his eyes. “Good,” he says. He sounds like he’s been sleeping, which doesn’t do anything good for Luke’s concentration as he closes his eyes and tries again to feel the rush of pride he felt, sensing the laser-bolts from the training ‘droid. He tries for the rush of adrenaline he felt, watching from the captain’s flight-seat as the _Falcon_ made the jump to lightspeed, the thrum of power rushing just under his fingertips, but the memory of Han’s wounded leg rises in his memory, instead, the sickly grey twist of nausea coming back with all the power Luke wishes it didn’t have, his stomach rising mutinously into his throat, settling into a dull queasiness as Luke backs off from it, breathing hard through his nose as he tries to remember what Ben taught him about acknowledging feelings and letting them pass, his desire for the nausea to pass more quickly than it is getting in his way, tangling around the revulsion and fear wrapped up in the physical reaction to seeing damaged skin, the empathetic response to another person’s pain. He’s mostly gotten it under control when a the rush of darkness hits him, unexpected and unwarranted, and combined with the nausea he’s only just tamped down, it’s almost enough to _actually_ make him throw up, only the emptiness of his stomach saving him from more than a single, powerful heave. He rocks forward with the force of it all the same, clutching hard at his gut as he goes, gasping breath as he pushes himself up to look around for the source of the pain, half-expecting to find the ship under fire or falling apart around him, the vacuum of space rushing in to suffocate him.

Instead, he finds Ben staring into the distance, face drained of color and eyes wide, the ship quiet around them, otherwise. He pushes himself to his feet and crosses the galley to touch Ben on the shoulder, his manners coming to the fore of his mind too slowly to remind him to ask if Ben’s okay first and ask what in the _hell_ just happened second.

“That,” Ben says, his voice low and hoarse, “was a disturbance in the Force. As if millions cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.”

It felt more like a dream about falling, to Luke, just without the bit where he wakes in his bed, heart-pounding and muscles tense. “What causes something like that?” he says, instead.

Ben shakes his head. “I shudder to consider what could have caused such a rift,” he says. He offers Luke a cold, fake smile and pats Luke’s hand where it’s sitting on his shoulder. “I think you’ve had enough practice for one day,” he says. “You should get some rest. Clear your mind of all this, allow your body some care for now. You’ll have some tiring times coming up once we have you delivered to Master Yoda.”

The temptation to argue presents itself as valid and justifiable, a thousand questions popping up like fire-ants flooding from a nest in the dunes, spreading across Luke’s thoughts, but he nods and says goodnight to Ben, the obvious tiredness in the old man’s expression helping him quell his curiosity. He joins his aunt and uncle in the bunk Han pointed out to them hours earlier and stretches out on his back on the bedroll laid out on the floor for him, the darkness of the room and the hum of the ship oddly meditative, allowing him to slip into the state he’s striven for since Ben’s first lessons with him on Mos Eisley. He reaches out with equal fear and curiosity for the darkness he felt in the galley and finds nothing, at first, sleep lapping at his consciousness when a deep, cold blue thread of pure anguish slips across his thoughts, bringing him awake once again, and he pushes at it when it tries to recede from him, persists in his pursuit of it until he feels his senses fill with hatred turned inward, not his own but debilitating in its potency nonetheless. He feels denial and resistance and _power,_ raw and bright and feral, like nothing he’s ever imagined. He feels heartbreak and loneliness and defeat, the abrasive salt of tears on skin. He feels terror wrapped around all else in the cold blackness of captivity, echoing with breath and threat and the promise of pain, the thinnest sheen of whiteness covering skin prickling with resistance and rejection, burning under unwanted touch.

He does sleep, eventually, but he does not sleep well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_Notes_ :

It bothers me that Ben starts Luke off with weapons training. I get that he kind of had to, given the way the plot of the films went, but it has always sat ill with me regardless. I feel he’d be more the type to teach Luke to recognize the Force and engage with it, first, _then_ show him how to go waving his lightsaber around without damaging everything and everyone within reach. (I mean, _obviously_ this is what I think, ‘cause it’s in my story, but.)

Also, headcanon, Aunt Beru is trained in the art of medicine and healing, not out of choice so much as out of necessity. Uncle Owen is a good man and decent farmer, but he’s also a natural klutz and gets hurt _all the goddamn time_ on the farm. I have a super sappy headcanon for this relationship that might find its way into a story at some point, god help us all.

Also _-also_ , it bothers me _to no end_ that there’s no Luke/Han subtext happening in this story yet. I don’t see it in canon once they’re aboard the _Falcon,_ mind you, but when they’re in the cantina and Luke just obviously _cannot_ keep his eyes off Han, blushing and looking up at him like the adorable little twink he is? Dear god, just end me, I expire.

That didn’t make it into this chapter but it’s coming in the story’s later chapters, I suspect, ‘cause I mean, _really,_ it’s canon how bad Han’s got it for Luke. _Canon I tell you._

_(“Yeah, I knew him. I knew Luke.”_ from the latest film? Fucking kills me. I _weep.)_ ;A;


	3. Princess (?) Leia Organa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Chewie's sayin’ the planet’s gone,” Han says, “and I think he’s right.”
> 
> “What do you mean, _gone?”_ Luke says.
> 
> The wookiee answers him. Luke looks to Han, who looks like he’s been smacked across the face.
> 
> “The asteroid field,” Han says. “Oh my _god,_ you’re right.” He points out into the blackness of space. “Chewie didn’t navigate us into an asteroid field. That was Alderaan."

** Chapter Three **

_Princess (?) Leia Organa_

Han is back to wearing his boots when Luke wakes from yet another nightmare and gives up on sleeping, slipping down to the cockpit with a thought to sneak another peek at the view of hyperspace flowing around them without anyone seeing him, eager to see once again with his own eyes the thrum of energy from the countless worlds and stars tangible in his very _soul_ every time he meditates, every time he reaches out to sense the Force. He doesn’t tell Han any of that when Han notices him and asks what he wants, his tone more curious than unkind, no hint of his earlier smirk on his face, so Luke shrugs and sits down in the flight-seat beside him, careful to keep his hands away from the controls, folded carefully in his lap.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he says.

“Takes some getting used to, sleepin’ on a starship,” Han says. “Since it’s your first time off-planet ‘n all.”

Luke rolls his eyes. “How much longer to Alderaan?”

“Not much,” Han says. “Ten minutes, give or take.” He snorts. “Thought maybe that’s why you came down here, that you sensed through your magical Force that we were close.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Luke says.

 _“I_ don’t think it works,” Han says. “Period.”

“Have you been to Alderaan before?” Luke says, pointedly ignoring Han’s obvious baiting, and it works, the grin showing Han’s teeth going stale immediately and disappearing entirely when Luke looks at him and holds his gaze, a politely curious expression studiously maintained on his own features.

Han shrugs. “Couple’a times, yeah.”

“What’s it like?”

“Better’n Tatooine,” Han says. “Cooler, for one. Lot’a trees and rivers and stuff. Nice cities here and there. Lots of rules and plenty’a police to enforce ‘em.” The grin’s back, but it bothers Luke a little less this time. “Not a whole lot of flexibility for someone in my line of work.”

He clearly isn’t joking, and laughs openly when Luke doesn’t have a response.

“Don’t worry, kid, you’ll like it just fine,” he says, reaching over to pat Luke on the thigh, his hand warm through the fabric. “The girls’re pretty, the men’re even prettier, and they _all_ like a pretty face on an off-worlder. You’ll be popular enough, if you can get your mom and dad and grandpa to leave you alone long enough for you to go out and flirt.”

“They’re not my parents,” Luke informs him, but Han ignores him, distracted by something on the display panel beeping at him.

“Comin’ up on the drop,” he says. “Stick around, you’ll like this bit. But don’t touch anything unless I tell you to.”

Luke glares at him for a few seconds before the sound of the wookiee coming down the corridor distracts him, his butt out of the wookiee’s seat and settled firmly in the seat Han took during their escape from Tatooine scant hours before when the wookiee comes in to take the co-pilot’s seat, Luke’s curiosity stronger than his pride, which means he’s got a front-row seat to watch them drop out of lightspeed and right into an asteroid field, a rookie mistake in calculating the jump that even _Luke_ suspects he could avoid, were he forced to make the calculations. Han is of the same opinion, too, shouting insults immediately at his co-pilot, the wookie raising a ruckus in response that brings Ben into the cockpit with sleep roughing his voice and a question on his lips about what’s going on as Han steers the ship around the obstacles flying at them, filling the blackness of space with the sound of rock bouncing off the shields surrounding the ship.

“Just find the damn planet and plot a _decent_ course to it, this time,” Han snarls at the wookiee. “I’ll get us outta this, you know I will.”

The wookiee huffs indignantly at him and punches a few buttons, then makes a confused sound and punches a few more buttons, turning seconds after that to let loose with a string of sounds that Luke thinks at first _must_ be horrible insults and realizes instead must be really bad news, based on the look Han gives the wookiee in response, his voice almost comically shrill as he says, “What do you _mean_ it isn’t there?”

The wookiee roars an answer at him. Luke and Ben join them at the console, shoulders touching as they look at the star-chart. “What isn’t there?” Ben wants to know.

“He’s sayin’ the planet’s gone,” Han says, “and I think he’s right.”

“What do you mean, _gone?”_ Luke says.

The wookiee answers him. Luke looks to Han, who looks like he’s been smacked across the face.

“The asteroid field,” Han says. “Oh my _god,_ you’re right.” He points out into the blackness of space. “Chewie didn’t navigate us into an asteroid field. That was Alderaan. Or what’s left of it, anyway.”

_“How?”_

“Dunno. Got bigger fish to fry, we’ve got company. Chewie, shields fore.”

An unnecessary instruction, the wookiee already punching the shields into full power just seconds before the green flash of laser-bolts connects with the front of the ship, the shields bright with impact but holding fine, Luke’s heart stuttering in his chest with a mess of excitement and terror as he gets to see a TIE fighter, a _real_ TIE fighter, for the first time, the ship’s maneuvers as it swings away from the shots Han takes at it as breathtaking as Luke had read they were, daydreaming in his bedroom on Tatooine about piloting one, about the dogfights he could undoubtedly win with the power of a TIE at his fingertips.

“What’s it doing so far out here?” he says, after the thrill of seeing the fighter dulls enough for his logical mind to catch up. “A ship that size shouldn’t have the fuel capacity to be this far out in deep space.”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Han says. “He won’t be makin’ it back to tell tales of his deep space adventures, not if I have any say in it.”

“Better shoot him down before he gets to that moon, then,” Luke says, squinting into the smattering of stars, his knowledge of the planets and moons beyond those in the Outer Rim and important planets like Coruscant and Corellia as weak as ever, knowledge he figured he’d pick up later at the Academy, a reassurance he repeated whenever Aunt Beru chided him for his poor retention of information in that department.

At his side, he feels Ben ... _stop,_ for want of better description, even as the words are leaving his mouth. Like a droid with a sudden short-circuit, only without the sparks and smoke and Uncle Owen cursing and throwing things. He turns and finds Ben as pale as if he’s been shot, blue eyes stretched wide, and when he reaches out, curious, he feels his own stomach _drop_ at the devastation flowing through Ben, deeper than fear could ever be, dark and cold and awful as it crawls up Luke’s senses.

“That’s no moon,” Ben breathes when Luke touches him on the arm and says _are you okay?,_ the old man’s voice barely above a whisper. “It’s a space station.”

Which can’t be possible because space stations aren’t a _quarter_ the size of the moon ahead of them, at least not that Luke knows of, anyway. He’s pleased that Han agrees with him, saying out loud what Luke’s thinking, and he actually manages to feel something _other_ than disdain and distrust for the guy because of it for all of the thirty seconds they have between Han agreeing with him and the ship starting to shudder all over, Han cursing loudly and the wookiee howling indignantly as the ship’s dragged in close to the sphere that is absolutely, terrifyingly, _exactly_ what Ben said it was, an impossibly enormous space-station seated square in the middle of deep space, fully equipped with a tractor-beam strong enough to haul the _Falcon_ into one of its docking bays despite the forward thrusters and auxiliary thrusters and secondary engines Han and the wookiee employ, trying to shake it off.

“Well I ain’t goin’ down without a fight,” Han says, dropping his hand to the blaster at his hip as the perimeter of the bay swallows the darkness of space around them, his tone laced with fear that makes Luke’s stomach shudder, the man before him transforming with that single, softly spoken sentence from a ruthless smuggler to a brave captain, steeled and ready to go down with his ship.

Which Ben somehow misses, patting Han gently on the shoulder as if Han were little more than a frightened child. “There are ways other than fighting, my friend,” he says, his smile not faltering even a little when Han gives him a look that clearly indicates that he is _not_ Ben’s friend, that he very probably doesn’t even _like_ Ben, even a little. He’s cooperative enough about hearing Ben’s ideas and helping make them a reality, though, doing little more than frown a lot as Ben sends Luke off to wake Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen and sends Han and the wookiee -- Chewbacca, he says the wookiee’s name is, when Ben’s outlining his plan and hesitates, clearly unsure how to address the seven-foot-tall creature looming over him -- to clear out a hidden storage hold concealed within an already hidden storage hold, space Han proudly announces he uses for smuggling the most valuable of valuable goods. They’ve gone their separate ways before it occurs to Luke, waking his aunt and uncle and leading them down into the hold, that by extension, Han’s bragging means he considers Luke and Luke’s family to be of great value, a smile cracking through the anxious worry clawing at his skin when a mental image presents itself of Han’s reaction, were Luke to point that out to him, his imaginary Han going red in the face and insisting that that’s _not_ what he meant, stomping his foot before he remembers his injury, then hopping around in a circle, cursing in pain.

He schools his face into a more solemn expression when he sees Ben looking at him, Ben’s frown more contemplative than judgemental or disapproving. Wraps his arm around his aunt as they settle into the inner hold to wait, his hand bumping against Uncle Owen’s shoulder, the closeness and familiarity of them nearby soothing the knot of concern tight under his breastbone, his blood slowing in his veins as he closes his eyes and focuses, reaching out. Feeling Han nearby, coming towards them at a good clip. Others outside the ship, faint but coming sharper into focus. Bored but on-edge. Waiting, ready. Bland.

Han joins them in the hold but stays out in the main compartment, not stashed away in the innermost space with Luke and his aunt and uncle, his hand on the blaster at his hip and elbow jabbed into the R2 unit’s front service panel as he crouches down beside Ben, the wookiee crammed uncomfortably in the back corner with the 3PO unit.

“All right,” he says to Ben. “All yours, now.”

Ben dips his head in a side-slant nod. “Thank you.”

He closes his eyes and draws a deep breath through his nose, hands tucked into the sleeves of his robes, once again. Luke darts a glance at Han, then closes his own eyes and takes a deep breath like Ben did, reaching out, trying to focus on Ben, to figure out what Ben’s doing. He feels nothing, at first, and then the _absence_ of nothing when he persists, Ben doing something to make himself not project anything, like a ghost moving through the dunes at twilight, Luke’s skin crawling with it, disconcerting enough that he opens his eyes just to make sure Ben’s still _there,_ and finds the old man sitting right where he was before, still and silent and eyes closed, breath coming slow and even through slightly parted lips.

Ben stands when they hear the main hatch open, hydraulics hissing and air shifting as the ship equalizes with the pressure of the docking bay. He pushes open the hold just as footsteps come down the corridor; soldiers, Luke would guess, from the heaviness of the steps. Flicks his hand in a careless gesture in Luke’s general direction when Luke opens his mouth to hiss at him that he’s going to give away their location, and Luke can _feel_ it, not in his soul or his heart or his veins, but against his skin, pressing into tendons and muscles and bones. A grip that stills him, grounds him. Keeps him motionless, restrained where he sits, arm around his aunt and ankles starting to ache under the weight of his own body, crouched as he is.

“There is no one here,” he hears Ben say as the old man climbs slowly out of the hold, leaving the hatch wide open. “You have searched the ship, including its smuggling compartments, and have found nothing but evidence that an escape pod launched prior to the jump to lightspeed. Your logical conclusion is that the ship was autopiloted as a decoy, and you defer to your commanding officer’s discretion on how best to communicate these findings.”

A moment. Then:

“Unit Leader, this is Zero-Two reporting in. The ship is empty, sir. We’ve found evidence that an escape pod was launched before the ship entered hyperspace. Looks like it made the jumps on autopilot. Possibly intended as a decoy.”

Silence follows. One of the soldiers shifts, the metal grating of the corridor creaking under his weight.

Ben says: “You’ll need to leave your armor and weapons here and remain aboard until your squadron has departed. When you are questioned, you will report that Obi-Wan Kenobi sends his regards.” There’s the sound of something tapping against hollow duraplast, a mental image slipping through the back of Luke’s mind like an old dream half-forgotten of Ben patting a soldier on the shoulder like he would a child.

He’s got a pile of Stormtrooper armor and under-armor piled at his feet and no soldiers anywhere nearby when he calls down to Luke and Han that _it’s perfectly safe to come out now,_ a benign smile on his face as Luke helps his aunt and uncle up out of the hold, then drops back down to help Han haul the ‘droids out as well. “The armor might not be precisely your size, but it will be enough to get the two of you into the station unnoticed.”

“Why’re we going out there?” Luke wants to know. “Shouldn’t we be trying to get out of here instead?”

“Ah. Yes, under normal circumstances,” Ben says, “but these circumstances are far from normal. It seems that Princess Leia is here, held captive somewhere on this station. It would be irresponsible of us to leave her here, don’t you think?”

Luke doesn’t take off at a dead run to go save his princess, but it’s a near thing. “Where is she?” he says, instead. “Can you tell? Maybe we could get the ‘droids to search the station’s systems. I think the R2 can do it. I can go with him, I have my lightsaber and Han can cover me. Or we could --”

“You’re not going anywhere,” his uncle informs him, getting a good grip on the collar of Luke’s tunic and tugging, hard enough that Luke stumbles backwards a step, his temper snapping around like a dune snake striking. 

“But they might _kill_ her!” he says.

“Better her than you, Luke,” his aunt says, and she’s _wrong,_ wrong-er than she’s ever been about anything before _ever,_ Luke’s heart breaking with the fury of it. He pulls himself out of his uncle’s grip and looks imploringly at Ben, who looks at Han, who loses the amused smirk he’d been wearing and puts both hands up.

“I ain’t gettin’ in the middle of this,” he says.

“No,” Ben says. “Nor am I asking you to. I would, however, like to offer you double what you were promised for escort off of Tatooine in exchange for your services in assisting Luke and myself in rescuing the princess.”

Han snorts. “Yeah, right. Be a miracle if I get paid for what I’ve done already. Which is more than I should’ve, by the way, gettin’ captured and dragged onto an Imperial Space Station wasn’t included in our original deal.”

“You’ll have the royal family of Alderaan and the Alliance in your debt, if you see this through,” Ben says, calm and patient as if discussing the weather over tea, the tranquil tone of his voice grating against Luke’s urgency. “And as you’ve said, the chances of receiving your promised payment now are slim, as we are indeed in enemy territory.”

“Yeah, well, as might’ve noticed, the royal family of Alderaan’s _gone,_ old man. We just flew through the scraps of their planet out there, remember?”

Ben’s expression cools, a thread of sorrow winding through Luke’s heart, cold and heavy; not his own, though he feels empathy with it, sympathy for the loss it expresses. “Yes,” he says, softly, “they have passed on. But their worldly holdings -- and access thereto -- remain intact, invested and secured and accessible from every corner of the known galaxy. Passed on upon their deaths to their daughter, who alone now carries the family name and who, for only the briefest present, remains alive, though captive, here on this station.”

Han at least has the decency to look uncomfortable, at that. He glares at Chewbacca when the wookiee growls something at him in a low tone, the muscles in his jaw twitching for a moment before he grumbles _fine!_ and grabs the under-armor out of Ben’s hand, rolling his eyes and tossing the garment into Luke’s face when he holds it up and finds it to be considerably too small to fit his larger frame.

“For the record, this is a terrible plan,” he says, shrugging out of his vest and unbuttoning his shirt, no shyness or hesitation whatsoever in shedding his belt and gun-belt and trousers and boots, his body bare and marked with scars that catch and hold Luke’s attention far better than it should, his skin prickled with gooseflesh in the cool air of the ship as he struggles into the under-armor, the stretch of the black material enough to compensate for the fact that it’s maybe a size too small for him, tight enough on his leg that he hisses, pulling it up over the bandages wrapped around his calf.

“I’m not sure we have what I would call a plan, just yet,” Ben says, serene as Luke remembers to stop staring and copies Han, pulling off his tunic and boots, his uncle stepping forward in a temper before he can get much further than that.

“Leave Luke out of it,” he says, his hand cool against Luke’s bare shoulder, his grip tight enough to make the muscles under his fingers ache. “He’s staying here.”

Ben shakes his head. “He’ll be in more danger here than if he’s moving around the station, I can guarantee you that.”

“How’s that, then?”

“Darth Vader is on this station,” Ben says, “and has certainly sensed the boy’s presence. _Only_ his presence, if we’re lucky. Mine as well, if we aren’t.”

Uncle Owen’s grip falters, just enough that Luke takes his chance and darts out from under it, putting Ben and the pile of discarded armor between himself and his uncle, whose attention shifts to continuing his argument with Ben, Han close enough at Luke’s side that Luke can feel the body heat coming off of him, which is awkward and puts him on-edge as he shucks his trousers down his legs and leans over the armor pile to retrieve the under-armor Han tossed at him earlier. It fits him just fine but it’s damp in the crotch and underarms with its previous owner’s sweat, which is gross, the boots even sweatier when he slides them onto his feet, which is _disgusting._ He helps Han figure out and clasp on the various pieces of armor that go over the black fabric, then stands still while Han returns the favor, a surprised bubble of laughter escaping him when Han leans in close and mutters against the shell of his ear _ten credits on your old man if this fight comes to blows,_ a crooked but genuine smile on Han’s mouth when Luke says _all right,_ pretty sure that it _won’t_ turn into a fistfight but even more sure that Ben would win, if it did, the memory of being restrained by little more than a flick of Ben’s hand still fresh in his mind.

“Thanks for going along with this,” he says, handing Han the helmet he thinks goes with Han’s suit of armor, his uncle gone quiet in the furious sort of way he has whenever things aren’t going his way and he can’t quite figure out how to make them change course.

Han snorts. “Don’t get the wrong idea, kid,” he says. “I got debts to pay and Alderaan’s not known for having impoverished royals.”

Luke frowns at him, the flicker of brotherhood he’d optimistically glimpsed as they suited up together sputtering and dying before him, but his aunt steps forward before he can complain, reaching out to touch the hard armor covering Han’s forearm.

“We don’t have much,” she says, her voice firm and quiet, “but we’ll compensate you as well for looking after Luke. If you will.” She meets and holds Han’s gaze, curling her fingers around his arm. “Please. Keep him safe.”

“He doesn’t need to take care of me,” Luke says, just as Han’s saying _I’ll do what I can,_ and that’s just _the worst_ because he sounds like he _means_ it, Ben stepping between Luke and his family and shoo’ing Luke and Han out before Luke can push the issue or hug his aunt and uncle goodbye or look over his shoulder to look at them one last time, in case it’s his last chance to do so, the bright tendrils of fear just starting to creep up around his heart as he follows Han down the corridor to the exit hatch, out into the cavernous echoes of the docking bay.

\---

The good news is: they find the princess and she’s still alive and she’s _really_ pretty, even prettier than she was in the holoprojection.

The bad news is: they’re just as trapped as she was just minutes after they find her, thanks to the layout of the cell block and their utter lack of planning, and Luke ends up looking like an idiot in front of the princess _and_ Han, nearly drowning in _water,_ more water than Luke’s ever seen in one place, before, even in years with three annual rains back home on Tatooine, when the water they pulled from the sand filled the collection receptacles four times over apiece for weeks, a surplus Uncle Owen said was unprecedented, a blessing from the gods they thanked daily, even in times of drought. And he’d be embarrassed -- _humiliated_ \-- by the whole thing, especially when he surfaces, coughing, and discovers that Han’s saved him just like Luke _said_ he wouldn’t need the man to do, except that then the walls start closing in around them, and since they manage to escape without being flattened only because of the ‘droids Luke fixed up back home, Luke figures he’s got a good case to make about being even with Han, should it ever come up. Which it doesn’t, but that’s only because it’s the princess’s turn to even the score with them, next, proving herself to be better with a blaster than Luke is, and that’s embarrassing but useful, _really_ useful because she doesn’t hesitate to prove that she’s better with a blaster than Han, too, she’s actually _damn good_ with a blaster, and she presses a kiss to Luke’s cheek before he pulls off a stunt that would _definitely_ make his aunt faint if she could see it and only barely works because the princess weighs more than Luke’s expecting her to, Luke pulling a muscle in his back and twisting his ankle in the process of landing with her clinging to his side after making a jump with nothing but the grappling hook that came with his stolen suit of armor to trust with their safety. He’s concentrating so hard on not limping on his hurt ankle as they make their way back to the docking bay, his injury smarting enough that he doesn’t even _notice_ Ben until Han says _well that’s something you don’t see every day_ and nods towards the honest-to-god lightsaber duel taking place across the docking bay from the _Falcon,_ at the tall figure clothed entirely in black, swinging at Ben with a bright red lightsaber, Ben dodging and parrying with surprising speed and coordination, blocking each stab and swipe, but not taking the offensive, no matter how many openings his opponent leaves, even to Luke’s untrained eye.

Like the opening Ben gets when Luke’s mouth gets ahead of his brain, his shout of Ben’s name echoing across the docking bay loudly enough to get the attention of Ben’s opponent and the entire squadron of Stormtroopers Luke hadn’t noticed until they turn and notice him, Han calling Luke a word Luke doesn’t recognize but can tell isn’t nice, grabbing him by the collar just like Uncle Owen always did whenever Luke was trying to do something his uncle didn’t want him to do, yanking him up the gangplank of the _Falcon_ a few steps, the princess and Chewbacca darting up behind them. And Luke would go along with it, really he would, he _intends_ to, but he steps wrong on his twisted ankle and it _hurts,_ enough that he stumbles, and _that’s_ enough to slow him down, giving him a front-row view (as he falls square on his ass on the gangplank) of his uncle leaning around the corner of the entry hatch doorway, the man’s eyes going wide and cheeks going ashen just a split second before he comes rushing out to Luke’s aid, his hands almost wrapped around Luke’s arm when

suddenly--

\-- everything--

_

\-- stops.

_  
Like all the air sucked from Luke’s lungs, drier than the water in the garbage chute but just as suffocating, the space around him stagnant and hot against his face, the red glow of a blaster bolt mere inches from him when he turns towards the source of the heat, breath coming to him once again as he yelps and leaps out of the way, the bolt sizzling past the instant he’s no longer in its path, sparks scattering as it collides with one of the hydraulic supports behind him. He vaguely registers Ben advancing towards him, lightsaber in one hand and his other hand outstretched, the dark figure following close behind, tensed and poised and ready to strike, and Luke’s got his mouth open to shout a warning to Ben when his uncle _leaps_ past him, faster than Luke has ever, _ever_ seen him move before, his footfalls heavy on the steel of the docking bay as he crosses it to stand at Ben’s side, his voice booming and loud, consuming in its anger and weariness and _pain_ that Luke can feel even without consciously reaching out, his chest aching with it, constricting his breaths.

“Stop,” he hears his uncle say, “stop this _right now._ Have you not caused enough suffering already?”

Unbelievably, the figure in black stops. “Owen Lars,” it -- _he_ \-- says, at length, the words punctuated by steady, mechanical breaths. Curiosity and confusion fill Luke’s mind for a split second before recognition hits him, sudden like a blast of wind in a sand-storm, the name _Darth Vader_ rising in his mind like a fractured echo, resentment and affection and jealousy and regret flowing through him like blood for a single, throbbing heartbeat before they’re cut off, silenced like the world around him was just moments before, replaced with a mockery of hatred, a stale act that feels _wrong,_ to Luke, sitting ill in his chest like a lie he’s told without reason or motivation. “You have traveled far, just to die.”

“You’ll not hurt him,” Ben says, drawing himself up to full height at Uncle Owen’s side and angling the blade of his lightsaber towards Darth Vader, the movement of it in the air pulling at Luke, his heart jolting with adrenaline, sharp and painful as the throb of his ankle and tailbone as he pushes himself to his feet, jogging unevenly across the tarmac to his uncle and Ben, his hand going to his lightsaber, pulling it free.

“Go back to the ship,” he tells his uncle, leveling his ‘saber at the man in the black robes and pressing the button that brings the blade to life, bright and pure and beautiful, a twin identical to Ben’s blade, crackling with energy he’s never felt before, power crawling down his arms, flooding his chest and throat and belly. “Go on, we’ll cover you. He won’t hurt you.”

“No, he won’t,” Uncle Owen says, not moving an inch because he’s stubborn like that, always has been, “nor will he hurt you.”

Vader cocks his head, oddly capable of emoting curiosity despite the unmoving mask covering his entire face. “Your memories of the man I was mislead you,” he says. “You come before me with an old man and a child. Do you know so little of my power to think they could protect you from me?”

He raises his hand and Uncle Owen goes rigid beside Luke, hands going to his throat as he wheezes, his eyes wide and unfocused as he’s lifted off the ground, his feet dangling inches above the metal floor. Choking to death, Luke realizes, and he strikes without much thought beyond that realization, the thorough rejection of the thought that anyone, _anyone_ should be allowed to harm his uncle ripping through him like a blade, but his ankle gives out under him as he twists around on it to attack, the blade of his ‘saber going wide as he falls, his uncle collapsing in a heap of coughing and rasping breath behind him as Luke rolls, his injured leg tucked under him, the other braced, ready to push him away from whatever retaliation might be coming.

Darth Vader is staring at him, when he looks up. Staring _into_ him, it feels like, every cell in his body rejecting it, vibrating with the intrusion of the moulded plastic gaze pinning him where he kneels. “Impressive,” Vader says, advancing on Luke with a single step, raising what Luke realizes used to be his arm, the stump sparking and smoking where a prosthetic hand once was, and it takes Luke the length of another menacing step from Vader to realize that he very well may have been the one to sever the hand, flailing and falling with his lightsaber engaged, but when he tries to look down, to see where the hand fell, he finds that he can’t, his chin held steady, as if by a hand, Vader’s good hand outstretched as its mate had been to Uncle Owen. Stilling the air around Luke, not unlike the suffocating stillness he felt on the _Falcon’s_ gangplank, lying inches from a frozen blaster-shot. _“Most_ impressive. You are strong in the Force, and not untrained. But not yet a Jedi.”

And he’s _curious,_ Luke realizes, reaching out in desperation for something to _do,_ stretching his mind along the fear he feels, trapped and powerless at the feet of the most frightening creature in the galaxy. Curious and confused and dreading and hopeful, the mix strange and pungent when Luke feels it creep along his ribs. He instinctively tries to push it away before he remembers what Ben taught him and lets it come, intent in acknowledging each thought and feeling and letting them pass, but they’re too strong for him, too insidious, winding into his mind and _pushing,_ his head aching with it, a physical strain that makes his vision go blurry, his stomach rolling as he slips into the fuzzy grey of unconsciousness, his uncle’s voice following him, trapped in echoing reverberations in the darkness that rises up to swallow him fully.

\---

When he wakes, he can’t move.

He tries, straining against the pressure tight across his chest, the invisible hands holding his arms tight against his sides, cutting into his skin, his ankle throbbing in time with his racing heartbeat as he tries to use his legs to leverage himself up and away from the claustrophobic stagnation of air he pulls into his lungs. He panics when he feels a hand on his chest, an _actual_ hand, panic giving way to confusion as the princess leans close to him, her voice soft as she speaks to him, telling him to calm down, to be still. Leaning close enough that he can see the curls of hair that have escaped the tight-wound braid wound like a crown atop her head, his panic-blanked mind latching with animal intensity onto the notion that her hair wasn’t styled like that the last time he saw her, and that he likes her hair like that, more than he did when it was the other way.

“Shh,” she says when he tries to ask her about it and ends up tying his tongue in a knot instead, babbling like an idiot. “You’re all right. You’re safe.”

Luke struggles some more, the touch of Leia’s hand on his chest surely not enough to keep him pinned as he is. “How?”

Leia shakes her head. “I’m not sure,” she says. “I was aboard the ship when they returned with you. Your friend and his wookiee companion insisted.”

That sounds right enough to Luke, his memory hazy but working on coming back into focus when he concentrates on it. “My uncle,” he says, when he reaches the end of memory, his uncle crumpled and unresponsive on the cold floor of the docking bay, the sound of fear in his uncle’s shout, just before darkness took over, “is he --”

“He’s fine,” Leia says, soothingly. “As is Master Kenobi. Everyone’s fine, Luke.” She looks away, distracted by the sound of a door opening, and smiles, Luke craning his neck, trying to see what she’s seeing. “He’s awake,” she says, her hand on his chest, still. “I think he’s all right. He’s asking questions already.”

She steps back and Aunt Beru takes her place, her eyes shining with unshed tears and hands shaking a little as she touches Luke on the cheek, then sets about loosening the restraints holding Luke in place, nothing more mystical or terrifying than simple woven cloth belts, standard on medical transport. She slides a hand behind his shoulders to steady him when he tries to sit up, murmuring to him to _go slowly, take it easy_ before turning to undo the straps wrapped around his legs, freeing him to sit with his legs dangling over the side of the medical bunk, his head offering a muted complaint of a headache when he looks from Leia to his aunt and back again, the memory of Ben saving him out in the Jundland Wastes offering itself for headache comparison, ridiculous enough that Luke hears himself laughing, maybe a touch hysterical, the room tipping sickeningly when Leia asks what’s funny and he makes the mistake of answering her with a shake of his head.

“How long was I out?” he says when his aunt presses a ration pouch of cool water into his hand and orders him to sip it slowly.

“Nearly an hour,” Leia tells him, “but Master Kenobi says there’s no permanent damage or alteration to your mind.” She purses her lips when he looks at her, confused. “One of Vader’s favored tricks.”

Aunt Beru clucks her tongue. “Enough of that,” she says. “You’ve both been through quite a bit and should be resting.” She reaches out to brush Luke’s bangs away from his forehead, and he’d object to it, to being treated like a little boy, _especially_ in front of the princess, except that his aunt reaches out for Leia next, pulling the princess to her in a gentle embrace, and Leia doesn’t hesitate to wrap her arms around her in response, resting her cheek against Aunt Beru’s chest, seemingly happy to be held. She looks younger like that, no longer the blaster-wielding fighter Luke rescued from the space station. She doesn’t put up a fight when Aunt Beru repeats an insistence that they rest, clearly intent on doing as she’s told, which Luke does not at _all_ want to do, a million questions filling his mind as he slides out of the medical bunk to follow them out of the closet that passes for a medi-hold on the _Falcon._

He’s in the middle of asking about his lightsaber, which is conspicuously absent from his belt, when Han interrupts him, his head popping up from a service chute in the floor like a stonerat in the Wastes, a smear of grease darkening his nose, the grease on his gloves making a mess where he rests his hands, looking up at Luke with a smirk that doesn’t cover the worry Luke can see in his eyes. “Hey Sleeping Beauty,” he says. “Good’a you to finally join the party. This ain’t a pleasure cruiser for catchin’ up on your beauty rest, y’know.”

Luke rolls his eyes but there’s no real annoyance behind it. He’s weary, for all that he’s still planning to put up a fight if his aunt tries to make him nap like he’s a little kid or something, the fatigue in his body resonating with the tiredness he can hear in Han’s voice. “Sorry,” he says. “Got tired from flying your ship for you, I guess.”

Han huffs and swats at him, leaving a grease-mark on Luke’s boot where his hand manages to connect, then hauls himself out of the floor with a grunt, peeling his gloves off as he kicks the panel back down over the access chute. “More like you wore yourself out being stupid,” he says. “Never seen anybody quite so hell-bent on gettin’ himself killed before I took you onboard.”

Temper pushes behind Luke’s eyes, blurring his vision for a hot second. “I couldn’t just do _nothing,”_ he says.

“Oh yeah, you’re a real hero,” Han says, lounging against one of the support struts arching over the corridor. He reaches out to poke Luke in the chest, his finger blessedly clean enough that he doesn’t leave any grease behind this time. “Just don’t be in such a hurry to go _dyin’_ a hero. Real hard to hero if you’re dead.” He shrugs. “‘S what I’ve heard, anyway.”

“Hero” isn’t a verb and Luke didn’t die but his aunt cuts him off before he can educate Han on all of Han’s deficiencies, and he follows her down the corridor without complaining about the smirk on Han’s face only because Leia looks tired and he doesn’t want her to have to stay up because of him. She rewards him for his consideration with a kiss on the cheek when they reach the bunk Luke slept in the night before, her cheeks going a little pink when she steps back and sees Aunt Beru smiling at her, radiating affection that makes Luke’s face feel too warm as the door closes behind Leia, leaving him to argue that _he_ doesn’t need to rest when his aunt tries to push him into the next room over to do just that.

“Captain Solo has been kind enough to offer to let you rest in his quarters,” she says. “It would be rude not to. And you _need_ rest, Luke. You look terrible.”

“I’m fine,” Luke argues, smart enough to know that it won’t get him anywhere to inform his aunt that he’s not sleeping in Han’s bed because it’s _Han’s_ bed and that’s weird, almost as weird as Leia sleeping where he slept, knows all that’ll get him will be a demand for an explanation he doesn’t want to have to come up with and isn’t even entirely sure he _could_ come up with anyway, his mind still feeling a little soupy and slow. “I’m not even tired. I need to talk to Ben.”

His aunt argues with him, of course, and it’s either his mounting frustration leaking through the Force or just dumb coincidence that Ben comes to his rescue just as Luke’s about to lose his temper and start stomping his foot, Aunt Beru narrowing her eyes at the old man when he treats her to a placid smile and _I hope I’m not interrupting anything._

“Good to see you up and about again, Luke,” he says, turning his smile to Luke when Aunt Beru doesn’t answer him, crossing her arms over her chest in plain disapproval, “though you do look as if you should be sitting down. Come, join us in the galley. Our gracious host and your uncle will be glad to see you.”

Luke follows happily, his aunt’s sigh as she walks just a step behind him the equivalent of a full sentence, loaded with displeased resignation. She relaxes just marginally when she settles down beside Uncle Owen on the bench at the back of the galley, reaching over to lace her fingers with his, Uncle Owen smiling tiredly at her as she does. He looks as if he’s aged ten years in the hour Luke was out, his eyes drooping and sad, his shoulders bowed. He grumbles _I’m fine, don’t look at me like that_ when Luke sits to his other side and asks if he’s all right, touching him on the arm and finding him warm, at least. A comfort under Luke’s fingertips.

“Just a quarrel between siblings,” he says when Luke asks what happened after he fainted, but his uncle isn’t looking at him when he says it, he’s looking at Ben, and Ben answers with a quiet laugh, shaking his head.

“There is no denying that Vader has grown powerful,” Ben says thoughtfully. “Powerful but sloppy, which I am confident we can use to our advantage. He’s not yet realized what he had, and what he has let slip through his fingers, nor has his master, despite the Emperor’s self-proclaimed greatness.”

Uncle Owen snorts and leans back, eyes closed as he mutters the Prayer of Thanksgiving under his breath, Luke repeating the ending without thought, his aunt’s voice mingling with his, echoing the strange familiarity of home within the metal confines of the galley.

The sound of Han clearing his throat breaks the spell, his face pulled in a shallow frown as he pushes away from the wall, coming over to straddle the chair nearest Luke’s end of the bench. “This’s all none’a my business,” he says, “but you’ve lost me. What’d who let slip through whose fingers?”

Ben considers him patiently. “Darth Vader,” he says. “And _Luke_ here is what he’s let slip away, along with Princess Leia. A mistake the magnitude of which I pray he will not come to recognize any time soon, and that he will in the future come to regret.”

“How?” Han wants to know, just as Luke says _why?_

“Because you are more powerful than you know, Luke,” Ben says, leaning forward, his forearms resting on his knees, “and more powerful than Darth Vader or the Emperor has guessed. I was concerned that we were tipping too much of our hand, if you will, allowing him to see you, to sense your presence, but now I am beginning to believe that, together with the princess, you could be his undoing.”

 _“Him?”_ Han says, his voice bright with derisive laughter, jarring to Luke’s ears, shattering the swelling of pride he’d been feeling at Ben’s words. “You’re tellin’ me the guy who tripped over his own feet and fainted at the _sight_ of that old magician is a _threat_ to the Emperor? _Or_ his second-in-command?”

“I am.”

“And the princess we found locked up in a cell?”

“Just as powerful,” Ben says, “and just as dangerous to the Emperor’s plans.”

Han blinks at him, his face a study in incredulity. He barks a mirthless laugh when Ben doesn’t react to his obvious disbelief, shaking his head as he looks at Luke, sighing hard enough that Luke can feel his breath brushing across his hand.

“Hate to be the one to break it to you, kid,” he says, “but your family’s _crazy.”_

Ben laughs, a _real_ laugh that Luke can feel, warm in his blood, the Force bright with it, vibrant. “My dear Captain Solo,” he says, his gaze darting just briefly to Luke before returning to Han, “you don’t yet know the _half_ of it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_Notes_ :

Hey, there’s some of that subtext I wanted. Not enough of it, mind you, but I made up for it by writing a 2k-word sex-scene between the guys that’ll show up in another chapter. Eventually. When I figure out where to put it.

Yup.

Another true story: the whole time I was writing this chapter, I could hear Christopher Eccleston in my head exclaiming, “Everybody lives, Rose! _Just this once,_ everybody _lives!”_ It made me smile. Poor Luke. He needs a universe where everybody lives. ~~And maybe a cracked-out AU where he’s 9th’s companion, just for a minute. Just _imagine_ the sass. It would be mind-bending.~~

I hate that Leia’s barely in this chapter, for all that it bears her name, but my excuse is that I’m writing a legitimate goddamn _novel_ about her, which means my brain’s running on empty when it comes to her story yet to be told. I love Leia and have [extensive feels about her and her relationship to and with her biological father](http://sumbdumbkidrecipes.blogspot.com/2016/02/alderaan-is-aldergone-pumpkin-pie.html) that somehow yield pie. I lead an interesting life, and that’s a true story, too.

On a related note, Han is coming out a different flavor in this story than he usually is for me. I don’t mind so much. There’s probably a novel in there somewhere but no, bad m3Q, only write one book at a time. Please.

Also, I know Sir Alec Guinness _hated_ the _Star Wars_ franchise and thought his role and lines were dumb, but I think his character has a ton of pure sass potential, and I’m having a _wonderful_ time exploring that here. Gods willing, we’ll get Ewan McGregor dealing out lethal doses of sass in the _Kenobi_ film. My body is ready. My heart ... probably not. *faint*


	4. The Rebel (?) Alliance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If you keep sneakin’ up here in the middle of the night,” Han says, just as Luke’s turning around, intent on slipping away unnoticed, “I’m gonna get paranoid that you’re trying to steal my ship.”

** Chapter Four **

_The Rebel (?) Alliance_

Luke and his uncle and Ben sleep in the galley that evening, Han as unapologetic and flippant as ever as he points out that there aren’t enough bunks on board for gender-segregated sleeping arrangements, shrugging when Uncle Owen asks if the galley is an acceptable place for sleeping, Han’s _do what you want, it’s your back_ ending the conversation. And where Uncle Owen’s back is one of the few parts of his body he’s not managed to mess up on the farm, Luke’s back puts up a fuss over sleeping on the hard durasteel floor panels straight away, the combined discomfort and rest he had earlier conspiring to keep him awake long after his uncle’s dropped off to sleep. So he sits up and folds his legs and reaches for the Force, curiosity burning bright like a pale green beacon, stretching across memory of Darth Vader standing before him, threatening him, the acknowledgement of _father_ coming to striking odds with the image of the man in the black mask and robes who caused such pain and fear and anger.

He reaches for it, nonetheless, his brow furrowing as he tries to imagine the man beneath the mask. His father would have a face like his own, he thinks, blue eyes and high cheekbones and a cleft chin and light hair, probably going grey with age. Scarred, likely, past injuries that would require the use of a ventilator too serious to have _not_ left their mark on him. He tries to imagine what his father’s voice might have sounded like before he became what he was on the station, and realizes that his mental images are morphing into the sounds and images of his uncle, warmth and comfort and love fitting like the air around Uncle Owen, wrong and foreign when he pulls his imagination to heel and tries to apply what he’s imagined to the figure that stood before him and restrained him and suffocated him, nothing but anger and the bitter lust for power surrounding the reality of the man who sired him.

And it _hurts._ More than anything Luke has ever experienced in his life, it hurts, his chest aching with it and eyes burning with tears that drop to his cheeks when he opens them, sucking in deep breaths of stale recycled air as he struggles to calm himself. It’s not just his own pain overwhelming him, he realizes as the emotions recede to bitterness at the back of his tongue. It’s Leia, crying quietly in her sleep, his aunt kneeling at her side, aching with empathy as she comforts her. It’s Ben, not far from them at the other side of the galley, deep in meditation and memory that Luke can’t see, all but the fog of regret and misery concealed as if wrapped in thick walls, repelling him.

He wipes his eyes on the sleeves of his tunic and slips out of the galley, silent on sock-feet as he makes his way down the corridor to the cockpit, the thrum of the ship louder there, distracting. Welcoming, almost, when he slips through the doorway and finds Han lounging in the captain’s flight-seat, feet up on the flight console and a glass of amber liquid in his hand.

“If you keep sneakin’ up here in the middle of the night,” Han says, just as Luke’s turning around, intent on slipping away unnoticed, “I’m gonna get paranoid that you’re trying to steal my ship.” He’s grinning about it when Luke turns back to argue with him that he’s _not_ planning anything of the sort, wouldn’t want an ancient clunky freighter anyway, and gestures at the co-pilot’s flight-seat with his drink, pushing himself up a little in his own seat as he does. “Still can’t sleep?”

Luke shrugs. “Wasn’t trying to,” he says, settling into the seat. “I was going through my exercises.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What?”

“You look like you let your dad tuck you in then had a nightmare, kid,” Han says. He puts up his free hand when Luke opens his mouth to object. “Nothin’ wrong with it. You can have nightmares about Vader. Pretty sure anybody in his right mind would.”

“It _wasn’t_ a nightmare,” Luke says.

Han makes a dismissive noise and lifts his glass to his lips, stopping just before taking a sip. He holds it out to Luke instead, shaking it a little when Luke looks at it but doesn’t take it.

“Go on,” he says. “Biggest mouthful you can get, swallow it in one go. You won’t like how it tastes, but it’ll help you sleep.”

Luke takes the glass and sniffs at the drink inside. It smells like degreaser mixed with the coppery dust in the Wastes. “What is it?”

“Don’t remember the name of it, to be honest with you,” Han says. “Closest thing to Whyren’s Reserve I’ve found, though. Comes from Tatooine, ain’t expensive, does its job.” He makes a shoo’ing gesture with his fingers. “Go on. Bottoms-up.”

Luke sighs and puts the glass to his lips, taking a deep breath before tipping the glass back, filling his mouth with the liquor. It tastes awful, even with his nose closed, and it _burns_ going down, drawing a full-body shudder through him, but the glass is empty when he hands it back to Han, swallowing desperately at the aftertaste, wishing for a mug of bantha milk to chase the burn.

Han takes the glass, laughing. “All right,” he says, “you got me, I’m impressed. Thought that’d be your first drink.”

It’s not -- Uncle Owen let him try a shot of ethanol distillate once when they went to Tosche Station to pick up parts for a broken ventilator on Luke’s sixteenth birthday, the urgency to fix the machinery overriding all else, as always, and the thrill of tasting his first drink, of his uncle taking a drink _with_ him, wordlessly acknowledging him as a man, no longer a boy, had been better than the sweets and presents they’d had to wait to get into until the following day when nothing on the farm was broken -- but Luke licks his lips and says, “It tastes awful.”

“It’s an acquired taste,” Han says, “and it ain’t like the taste’s its biggest selling point anyway. Good for sleepless nights and fixin’ heartbreak.” He leers at Luke, reaching down for the bottle. “Give it a minute to hit your system, you’ll see what I’m talkin’ about.” He pours himself another glass and takes a long sip, sighing like he doesn’t mind how it tastes or feels going down his throat. Looks sidelong as Luke after another sip, considering him long enough that Luke feels his face growing warm.

“What?”

“Nothin’. Want another swig?”

Luke shakes his head, the room moving funny as he does. “I think I’ve had enough.”

Han snorts softly and goes back to his drink. “Just don’t fall asleep and fall outta your chair,” he says after a moment. “I ain’t gonna catch you if you do.”

“I won’t,” Luke promises.

He leans back in the flight-seat and watches the swirl of hyperspace around them, his system dragging like the light and dark pulling against the transparisteel viewscreen, eyelids heavy over his blurring vision. He closes his eyes and feels the flow of the Force around him without trying to reach out into it, feels the glow of Han beside him, calm and comfortable and at ease, the hum of machinery around them, warm like a blanket left out in the sun. He feels affection and comfort when he reaches for Leia, the blessing of sleep wound around her like the braids crowning her head and Aunt Beru’s arms around her body. Feels hope and yearning when he reaches further, his memory drawing at his earlier upset, tasting it curiously, as if frightened of what it might find.

 _My son,_ he feels, deep in his soul.

 _Father,_ he answers without thinking, and when his rational brain catches up with the realization of what he’s felt, what he’s heard, it jolts through him like a bolt of electricity, the panic and terror and rejection that flood him enough to bring him to his feet with a shout that makes his throat ache, Han swearing loudly as he yanks his blaster from his belt, tensed and ready to shoot before Luke’s gotten his bearings again, panting as he looks at Han, the man staring at him, wide-eyed and half out of his flight-seat.

 _“What in the name of fuck,”_ Han wants to know.

“Sorry,” Luke whispers.

Han blows out a heavy sigh, his hands shaking a little as he shoves his blaster back into its holster. “Kriffin’ _hell,_ Luke,” he breathes. “You scared ten years off my life.”

“I’m sorry,” Luke says again. “I didn’t --”

But Han waves it away, running his hand through his hair as he slumps back into his flight-seat. “Shouldn’t’a let you fall asleep up here,” he says, reaching again for the bottle of liquor by his seat. He pours a quarter of an inch into his glass and holds it out to Luke. “Here. One for the road. Down that and _go to bed.”_

Luke takes the glass. “I wasn’t asleep,” he says.

“I don’t care _what_ you were,” Han grumbles. _“I_ want you drunk and outta my hair, or at least outta my cockpit.”

And it would be funny, Luke thinks absently as he puts the glass to his lips and dumps its contents into his mouth, shuddering as he swallows, the liquor no more pleasant than he’d remembered it, though easier to swallow, now that he knows what to expect. His heart’s still pounding in his chest when Ben comes in, just in time to see him lowering the now-empty glass, Ben’s eyes red with sleep and clothes rumpled. He looks from Luke to Han and back again, frowning a little as his gaze drops to the glass in Luke’s hand.

“I hardly think that’s what you need, at your age and so early in your training,” he says, crossing the few steps between them and plucking the glass from Luke’s hand, thrusting it in Han’s general direction. “You’ve not yet learnt defense, and chemical depressants will lower what defenses you naturally have.”

Han, for whatever reason, laughs at that. Luke apologises, guilt twisting miserably in his chest.

“I felt something,” he tells Ben, quick before he can lose the nerve. “Just now, while I was meditating. I heard something. I think --” He darts a glance at Han. Swallows. “I think it was my father’s voice.”

Ben’s eyes go very wide. He puts a hand on Luke’s shoulder and looks at Han. “You heard nothing?” he says.

“Not a thing,” Han says. “Luke doesn’t even _snore.”_

“What did your father say to you?” Ben wants to know.

“He called me ‘son,’” Luke says.

“Not very original,” Han tosses out.

“You’re quite certain?” Ben says, steadfastly ignoring Han.

Luke nods. Ben’s hand tightens on his shoulder, then drops, and Ben looks _old_ all of a sudden, old and tired.

“No more exercises tonight,” he says. “Rest. Tomorrow, I will teach you what I know of defense. That should suffice until we have you safely delivered to Master Yoda.”

He turns without another word and leaves the cockpit, leaving Luke to rub a hand over his face, the muffled blur from the second glass of liquor he drank making his skin slow to respond to his own touch, belatedly relaying the sensation to his brain, his mind sluggish as it does its best to spin with the adrenaline left from hearing Vader’s voice, the worry winding through him at Ben’s obvious concern. The sound of Han grunting as he climbs out of his flight-seat catches and holds his attention better and more fully than it should, the older man yawning a little as he stretches, his hand warm when he wraps it around Luke’s arm, just above the elbow.

“All right, Junior, you heard your grandpa,” he says, nudging Luke out of the way and pulling, dragging him towards the doorway. “Time to go to bed and stop playing Jedi.”

Luke tries to pull his arm out of Han’s grip but isn’t successful, giving up when Han tightens his hand, clearly interested in keeping it where it is. “He isn’t my grandfather,” he says.

“You keep sayin’ that,” Han says, dragging him down the corridor.

“We’re not related.”

“Uh-huh. And you just happened to find two kindly old folks to treat you like their kid to go along with your not-grandpa, right?”

Luke rolls his eyes, which makes the entire corridor spin. _“They’re_ my aunt and uncle. Ben’s just ... he lived near us. And he knew my father.”

“And now he’s teachin’ you to be a wizard,” Han says. “Got it.”

He’s making fun, which makes Luke angry, but he’s also dragged Luke into his quarters, which is confusing, and Luke’s tired and inebriated enough that he doesn’t do much more than stand by the closed door and glare at Han while Han strips off his gun-belt and vest and trousers and flops down onto the bunk by the wall in nothing but his shirt and pants with a sigh that Luke _knows_ he shouldn’t be able to feel, as far away as he is or through the clothes he’s wearing, but feels all the same, brushing against him like static.

“C’mon, lie down,” Han says. “Ain’t fair to your uncle and the old man for you to be havin’ your nightmares in the galley, wakin’ ‘em up. You’ll sleep better here anyway. Bunk’s not the best but it’s better than the floor.”

Luke thinks, idly, that he should voice _some_ objection, but he’s shrugging out of his tunic and crossing the room in four steps and flopping onto his side on the bunk before he’s come up with any reason not to, the mattress springy and soft under him, so much better than the floor of the _Falcon;_ the best thing in the galaxy. It smells vaguely like Han, like grease and sweat and cologne gone stale and fragile in the woven threads. Shifts a little under him, jostling his body as Han moves behind him, laughing at him again, some part of Han -- his elbow, maybe, Luke thinks -- touching his back, just lightly. A grounding presence, comforting in the spinning haze of Luke’s mind.

“Remember, no meditating,” Han says, his voice soft in the darkness.

Luke thinks about laughing, as he drifts to sleep. He’s out before he can tell if he managed or not.

\---

He’s alone when he wakes, his mouth dry and sticky with a bad aftertaste like it has when he’s been up all night with a stomach flu, his body cocooned in a blanket that smells vaguely clean and catches against the fabric of his trousers when he tries to push it down and sit up. He looks around, rolling his shoulders as his brain pieces together memory of the night before. The alcohol, the voice in his head. Fear in Ben’s eyes. Han dragging him down the corridor. Making fun of him as he fell asleep.

The floor’s cold against his feet as he slides out of Han’s bunk and pulls the blankets up over the mattress, figuring the teasing he might get for making the bed is probably better than the teasing he might get for being a slob, his toes unpleasantly icy even through his socks as he tugs his tunic back on and makes his way down to the galley to retrieve his boots. His aunt and uncle and Ben and Leia are all in the galley already, his aunt fussing over him immediately when he walks in, pushing a pouch of water into his hand and ordering him over to the table to have a ration pack, finger-combing his hair when he sits to pull his boots on, muttering lowly that space-travel isn’t good for him, isn’t good for _any_ of them.

She’s being over-protective again, but he lets her fret over him without resistance, settling beside the princess once his feet are wrapped up in his boots and starting to thaw. Leia’s pale, but she looks better than she did as a prisoner. Her gown’s been cleaned, the stains from her imprisonment fainter for it, and her hair is neat, hanging in a long braid down her back. She greets him politely when he sits, her voice stirring in him the memory of her upset the night before, remnants of pain pushed aside plain in the air around her when Luke reaches for her, almost without thought, guilt jolting him when he remembers the Ben’s admonition against doing exactly what he’s doing, the old man looking at him when he glances across the galley, Ben’s face unreadable.

“I would like a moment alone with Luke and Leia, if I may,” Ben says, pushing himself to his feet and crossing the galley once Luke’s finished his ration pack, his mind wandering aimlessly like it does whenever he’s not gotten enough sleep and isn’t busy with chores first thing in the morning. Ben settles at the table across from them, offering Leia a kindly look. “If you’re feeling up to learning some new exercises.”

Leia nods, sitting up straight. Luke does as well, his back offering none of the protest he’s expecting to feel.

Ben is quiet as Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru leave the galley, dipping his chin in a reassuring nod when Uncle Owen hesitates, clearly concerned. He sits back on the bench and rests his hands on his thighs once it’s just the three of them, drawing a slow deep breath before speaking.

“What I am going to try to teach you today,” he says, “is not easy, and you will not master it, not today, not tomorrow, not for quite some time. It is frustrating and is _intended_ to bring you to anger, which you must recognize and overcome as it arises. Know that you are to gain strength from this, from failure, and to learn from the experience.”

Luke nods. At his side, Leia nods as well, her mouth pressed in a thin line, pulse beating visibly at her throat.

Ben reaches across to rest his hand on hers. “If it is any consolation,” he tells her, “Master Yoda will be very displeased that I’ve jumped straight to this lesson. I’ll have a good scolding in my future, and you can have that to look forward to.”

He’s trying to make a joke, and Leia does her best to pretend to be amused by it, but the undercurrents of worry flowing among the three of them sour the whole thing. Luke puts his hands in his lap and waits, pleased when Ben sits back and instructs them to close their eyes and focus.

He’s not wrong about the exercise being one of frustration and failure, unfortunately, describing first the practice of imagining blast-doors closing around the mind and heart, sealing them, then encouraging Luke and Leia to reach out beyond the imagined blast-doors, seeking each other’s feelings. _That_ bit is easy, almost laughably so, save that it’s easy because the exercise has, for whatever reason, amplified the thoughts and emotions Luke can feel coming from Leia as if broadcast across his own heart and mind, his own laid just as plain before her. He snatches at memory and thought when her thoughts of Han bring to the fore Luke’s memories of drinking with Han and sleeping in Han’s bed, and he’s distracted enough from trying to sense her that Ben has to remind him out loud to concentrate and focus, the embarrassment of failure spoken openly in the quiet of the galley is enough to set Luke up to fail on every other attempt he makes after that, his foot itching with the urge to stomp in frustration.

“You’ve done well,” Ben tells him when the lesson ends and Luke’s got a headache blossoming at the base of his skull and Leia’s rubbing her temples, her lower lip swollen where she’s been gnawing at it. “Both of you.”

“You’re certain that I’m -- that this is _possible_ for me?” Leia says, her voice tinged with hopelessness.

“Oh yes,” Ben says. “Both of you have a strong connection with the Force, but for your own protection you’ve not been trained to recognize or control it. You’ll grow to master it, given time and patience and proper guidance.”

Leia shifts a little in her seat. “My father said it would be best if I ignored it,” she says. “I could ... _feel_ things when I was little. Knew things I shouldn’t’ve known. When I told my father about it, he said that it was a base, animal instinct. A remnant of evolution, unnecessary and crass.”

Ben raises both eyebrows, at that. “An interesting take on it, especially to say to a child,” he says. “When I knew your father, he had a deep and abiding respect for the Force, and for those trained in its uses.” He chuckles softly, tucking his hands into the sleeves of his robes. “I suppose the responsibilities of fatherhood and his desire to protect you must have changed his outlook. Understandable, though regrettable.”

Leia nods. She’s chewing at her lower lip again when Luke looks at her sidelong, a tear dripping from her eyelashes to splash on her cheek. She pushes herself to her feet and leaves the galley without another word before Luke can try to comfort her, his heart aching as he watches her go, the connection between them from their exercises not quite severed, noticeable in her absence at his side.

“My aunt and uncle never mentioned the Force,” he tells Ben when he looks back and sees the old man watching him.

“A choice made for the same reason, I’m sure, out of fear and a desire to protect you from the unknown, from your paternal heritage,” Ben says. He sits back, his hands tucked in the sleeves of his robe, considering Luke with a kindly expression. “You were raised well, both you and Leia. A loving family and stable upbringing are a benefit to those sensitive to the Force, one which cannot be replicated, and which has no substitute, so far as any who have studied the phenomenon have found, even over centuries of searching.”

Luke feels his heart warm, at that. “Yeah,” he says, thinking of his uncle’s brooding concern, his aunt’s fussing. “I was.”

\---

Luke’s meditating in the galley when they begin their descent to the surface of Yavin IV, Han’s voice ordering him to the cockpit over the comm disrupting his latest (failed) attempt to feel the shields around his mind while still reaching out.

“Comin’ up on Yavin IV,” Han says, when Luke joins him and Chewbacca in the cockpit and asks what Han wants from him. “Figured you’d want to be up here for the view.” He keeps his back pointedly turned as he speaks, but Luke’s senses are still raw and receptive from his meditations, so he can feel Han’s awkwardness as clearly as if the man had turned to let him see them on his face, the nuance of affection and pride warm underneath, a hint of excitement, either at visiting Yavin IV or showing off his piloting skills, Luke can’t tell. 

Luke takes the flight-seat behind him. “Thank you,” he says.

“Jus’ don’t touch anything,” Han grumbles, the act thin enough that Luke catches himself laughing softly at it, leaning forward to watch the blur of hyperspace shrink into blackness dotted fretfully across with stars, a sphere swirled in blues, greens, and white positioned ahead of them, dwarfed beside the enormous red planet glowing in the distance. Luke takes it all in, his stomach jolting a little as he realizes he’s managed unconsciously to raise at least part of a mental shield in response to the overwhelming sensation of being so close to a planet full of sentient beings, the murmur of woven presence moving like sand beneath a speeder quieting as he concentrates, his mind presenting him with the image of his hand covering a crack in sandstone, blocking the glare of the sun.

He’s distracted from it moments later as the _Falcon_ starts to shake and tremble as they slip into the atmosphere surrounding the planet, blurry blues melting into flares of white and yellow and red around them, blinding against the slow-emerging green of the planet’s surface, color sifting into defined shape as they approach the coordinates of the hidden base, the steep jut of mountains falling into shadows warmed by the sun not yet hidden behind the horizon, the air around the _Falcon_ heavy and choppy as they descend. Luke takes it in, his mouth dry and eyes wide, drinking in the greenness of it, more foreign than anything he could have imagined, and it’s only when he hears Han chuckling that he looks up and finds the captain looking at him sidelong, lips quirked in a closed-mouth smile.

“You look like you’re seein’ a woman without her clothes on for the first time,” Han says when Luke says _what,_ dreading the answer even before he asks.

Luke shakes his head and returns his attention to the view before him, the movement of the trees under the _Falcon’s_ repulsors visible now. “I didn’t think there was this much green in the whole galaxy,” he breathes, thoughts slipping into words, easy on his tongue. He looks at Han sidelong when Han doesn’t respond and finds the man looking at him still, but with something like pity in his eyes this time, his mouth open a little. Luke shrugs. “It’s different, is all.”

Han closes his mouth. “Ain’t all that special,” he says after a moment. “Could show you some places that’d make your head explode, if you think this is somethin’. Should, after we’ve dropped off your princess. Go someplace where you’re _not_ gettin’ shot at every five minutes. Someplace that doesn’t stink of Imperial trash.”

Luke’s heart leaps a little in his chest at the thought. He keeps his eyes trained fully on the view spread out before them, the open space of the landing port ringed with trees bigger than any growing thing Luke has ever imagined, even reading about other worlds during his lessons as a child, but he can feel the thrum of heartbeat under Han’s affect of concentration, uncertainty and anticipation twining around focus and care and defense, flavoring with something like grim determination the frown on his face when Luke sneaks a look at him. 

“Hey kid,” he says, once they’ve landed and Luke’s standing to join his aunt and uncle at the exit hatch. “Hang on. You’re gonna want this before you go out there.” He hands Luke a folded garment made of a thick woven material, decently soft and heavier than Luke’s expecting. It’s a poncho, he discovers when he shakes it out, the edges a little yellowed with age and a stain near the hem that looks suspiciously like blood, and it’s hideously ugly, smells musty when he holds it up.

“Why would I --”

“Because I slept next to you last night,” Han says, “felt you shiverin’ and stealin’ all the blankets. Yavin’s nothin’ like Tatooine. Your desert clothes ain’t gonna cut it out there.”

He is, irritatingly, absolutely right, the air that washes around Luke as he descends the gangplank heavy with cold that pushes against him, unlike anything he’s ever felt. He pulls the borrowed poncho close around himself without thinking, his face going hot in the cold air when he sees Han looking at him, grinning like he knows he doesn’t even need to say anything, Luke’s concession offered and accepted already. He sticks close to Luke as they stand in the shadow of the _Falcon_ on the landing pad, one hand on the blaster at his hip, a casual sort of edginess to him that makes Luke feel vaguely anxious. He stands by while his aunt and uncle come down the gangplank, huddled together in the damp chill, Ben coming down last with Leia on his arm, Leia looking as small and fragile and regal as she did in her holoprojection and hasn’t since Luke first laid eyes on her in her tiny prison cell. They’re greeted by a welcoming committee of men and women in long white robes that look a little like Leia’s gown but speak Basic with a variety of accents that don’t match Leia’s, save for an older gentleman with eyebrows bushy enough to give Uncle Owen’s a run for their credits and who embraces Leia after greeting her formally, and Luke can _feel_ her anguish at his touch, her unhappiness so sharp and overwhelming that he steps forward on instinct, wanting to pull her away from it, to push the man away from her, and he’s stopped only by Ben’s touch to his elbow, the old man shaking his head and smiling sadly when Luke looks at him, disoriented still in the way he gets whenever someone else’s emotions override his own.

“She’ll be all right,” Ben tells him, simply. “The general is Alderaani. A friend.” _A survivor like Leia herself,_ he doesn’t say, but Luke feels it in his chest, his heart breaking with it, and leaves Leia to her reunion uninterrupted.

She’s covered her feelings impressively well by the time she’s turning to introduce the group to Luke and Ben and Han and Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen, addressing Ben as _Master Kenobi_ and Han as _Captain Solo,_ gracious and polite and foreign for it, none of the yelling, shooting, running, brave young woman evident in her words or gestures, only the vaguest shadows of the girl crying in Aunt Beru’s embrace visible in her eyes when she looks at Luke and offers him a false little smile. The general shakes hands with everyone, thanking Han for rescuing Leia, for all that Luke’s the one who insisted on saving her, his hands clasped behind his back as he leads them to what he calls a base but what looks more like an abandoned spaceport, to Luke. It’s in considerably better shape inside than out, the façade of dilapidation startlingly convincing, the inside of the base buzzing with activity, the hangar General Rieekan leads them past lined with X-wings, _real_ X-wings, and it’s all Luke can do to keep his feet and not stray to the side to have a closer look.

At his back, Han snickers. “Wipe your mouth, kid,” he says. “Think you might be drooling.”

Luke glares at him, annoyance tempered a little by the way Leia looks at him over her shoulder, a soft smile barely curving the corner of her mouth. She leans on him a little after they’ve seen his aunt and uncle settled in the area designated for non-combatants and join General Rieekan and Ben for the review of the plans stored in the little R2 unit, Leia’s closeness at Luke’s side welcome, even though the room’s full of people, pilots in garish orange flight-suits and more people in white with stars on their chests to indicate their rank. Ben takes a chair not far off Luke’s position by the wall, distant and watchful, Han squeezing in close enough that Luke can feel his breath when the older man sighs, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest as General Rieekan brings up the blueprints of the _Death Star_ for all to see, the size and power of the thing staggering to Luke’s mind, for all that he’s been on it, maybe moreso _because_ he’s been on it, because he’s seen the length of the corridors, the steepness of the drops. He’s distracted from it by Han shifting behind him, slipping out of the room to join Chewbacca, his absence like the chill of shadows stretched long at the end of the day, sands gone cool brushing over his toes.

“I’ll be right back,” he murmurs to Leia, touching her on the shoulder.

She catches his hand. “Stay,” she says. “You’ll be flying this. You need to hear the full brief.”

“I’m what?”

Leia looks up at him, a small crease forming between her eyes. “Just pay attention,” she says.

Luke does his best, mentally cataloguing the movements of the different squadrons outlined in the attack plans, calculating the risks for each as if they were statistics in a simulation. He’s mostly got it when he’s approached by General Rieekan, the man’s hand cool when he extends it to Luke, his eyes heavy with tiredness Luke can _feel,_ as heavy and wet as the air around them.

“Captain Solo tells me you’re something of a pilot,” he says. “Red Squadron’s a man short, if you’re interested in joining up, showing us what you’re capable of doing behind the stick of an X-wing.”

“I’ve never flown one,” Luke babbles, stupid with the spike of excitement in his belly, his mouth running without waiting for his brain to catch up, as usual. “But I can learn. I’d like to.”

Rieekan gives Leia a dubious look, then nods once. “All right,” he says. “Come with me. Let me introduce you to Commander Antilles.”

Six hours later, Luke’s exhausted and exhilarated and talking himself hoarse to his aunt and uncle in their quarters about the flight simulations he flew for Commander Antilles, who speaks Basic with an accent just like Han’s and who insisted (after Luke beat his personal best score on his second go at the simulator) that Luke call him _Wedge,_ who slung a friendly arm around Luke’s shoulder and introduced him to the rest of the squadron as _our newest squadmate._ He’s telling them about his flight-suit -- garish orange like everyone else’s and more high-tech than anything he’s ever had his hands on before -- when a knock at the door interrupts him, Ben coming in with a solemn expression on his face and his hands tucked into the sleeves of his robes, no emotion coming from him when Luke reaches out, curious. Walled off behind mental shields, Luke realizes, pushing at them and finding no give, no weakness.

“They tell me you’ll be flying tomorrow,” Ben says, looking at Luke unblinking, standing even when Aunt Beru offers space for him to sit.

Luke nods. “I’m with Red Squadron,” he says. “Under Commander Antilles.”

“I see,” Ben says. “And you’ve received blessing from your aunt and uncle to participate in the battle?”

Luke falters, glancing at his aunt and uncle, seeing for the first time the lines of worry around Aunt Beru’s eyes, Uncle Owen’s scowl barely covering fear Luke can taste in the back of his throat, even without the Force. He squares his shoulders and looks Ben in the eye. “They said I have talent,” he says. “I’m needed.”

“Oh I have no doubt that your talents are needed, Luke,” Ben says, “but you must recognize that you have _many_ talents -- among them, piloting a starship, certainly -- but that you cannot pursue or engage all of your strengths in life. You must recognize and prioritize, consider all pros and cons before deciding on action.”

Luke swallows. “They need me,” he says, again.

“And if you are killed, being needed?” Ben says.

Behind him, Aunt Beru draws a sharp breath, murmuring a prayer. Luke reaches out to touch her shoulder, his temper only minimally muted by her upset.

“The _Death Star_ will destroy Yavin IV if we don’t destroy it first,” he says, repeating the speech Wedge gave him while he was trying on his flight-suit. “It’s not a soldier’s job to decide when or how he dies, but how he uses the life he’s given.”

Ben _smiles,_ at that, his expression softening into that of the old man Luke knew in his childhood. “Brave words,” he says, “and well-spoken. Indeed you must choose your own path, but please know that your strengths as a Jedi, as a knight strong enough to face the Emperor and address the cause of all this violence and suffering at its root, are not to be considered lightly.” Ben drops his hands from his sleeves, clasping them at his waist, every inch the sage old man Luke wants him to be. “I ask only that you think carefully, and use what you know, what you have learned. Do not let the passions of the moment overwhelm you or dictate your choices.”

He dips his head in a nod to Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen and leaves without another word. Luke exhales the breath he’d not realized he’d been holding, and startles a little at the touch of Aunt Beru’s hand on his back.

“Luke,” she says, “you don’t --”

“I need to think,” Luke says, cutting her off. He leans down and kisses her on the cheek in apology, then leaves the room, grabbing the poncho Han gave him on his way out, the suffocating mists of Yavin IV closing around him like a hand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gleeful headcanon #2,194: Luke’s a blanket-hog and Han sleeps in boxer-briefs and neither of them is willing to admit how much they like each other’s little quirks.

Playin’ kinda fast and loose with General Rieekan here. I rather like him, for all that he’s in canon for all of a hot minute. Can we get a movie that’s just all the great Alderaanis sitting around reminiscing and being badass? I’m talkin’ Bail, Leia, Rieekan, Tycho, Lor San -- ‘fess, you’d watch the _shit_ outta that. Have a group of drunken Corellians come in and crash the party at the end (Wedge, Corran, Han; Madine acting _completely_ sober until Mon Mothma shows up, then going all googly-eyed over her). So much potential.

Also, I don’t like the term “Alderaanian.” I know that’s technically correct, but “Alderaani” sounds better to me, so that’s what I’m going with. All complaints may be forwarded to mr. Quickly, because why not.

Also 2.0, this chapter was supposed to square up the whole first _Death Star_ battle and have that nice yummy sex scene in it, but then it didn’t and I’m not even sorry. The guys shared a bed, that’s enough, right? Right? ~~Dear god wrong, why am I even asking.~~ I don’t have the next chapter written yet, but the one after it is written. This annoys me to no end.

Unrelated note: I am STILL ill. The infection I got in Thailand five weeks ago has not yet abated (they attacked it with the wrong drugs, THANKS DOC), and because it’s eating at my immune system, I’m symptomatic of Everything Else Ever. I wrote part of this chapter while bleeding and crying like a baby in the emergency room, and where it was a nice distraction, I’m ready to be _well_ already. Ugh.


	5. The Death (?) Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His aunt and uncle stand by the following evening in the space where the _Falcon_ had been just hours before, Uncle Owen's R2 unit accompanying Luke in his Alliance X-wing, offered almost like a parting gift, a keepsake of home. Luke nods to them as his engines roar to life, Wedge’s first orders crackling across his headset. He nods to Ben as well, the old man standing apart, watching with a grim expression as Luke joins Red Squadron's exit formation, his heart in his throat and stomach in knots, tight below his ribs.

** Chapter Five **

_The Death (?) Star_

Luke walks.

Down the corridors of the Rebel Base, first, retracing his steps between the barracks and the hangar and the briefing room and the training center where he worked with Wedge, away from the memory of pride swelling in him at Wedge’s mock-annoyance when he beat Wedge’s best time on his second try, then again on his third and fourth and fifth and countless others after, even when Wedge went up against him in a simulated TIE fighter, juking and rolling and suicide-diving at him, trying every trick in the book to knock Luke out of the sky. He nods to the soldiers guarding the entrance he passed through with his aunt and uncle and Leia and Han half a day before, his heart-rate picking up in apprehension as he passes through, but the soldiers don’t stop him or ask him what he’s doing or where he’s going or who he is, their conversation pulling at his senses like a band of whipping wind as he passes between them and out into the wet darkness beyond the artificial light of the base, the vegetation slick under his boots, wet despite the absence of clouds overhead.

The trees whisper overhead, shaking fretfully in a breeze Luke can’t feel, and when he looks up he’s dizzy with the movement of their arms stretching out over him, countless leaves waving against the not-black of the night sky, giving the illusion of the stars winking at him, watching him. He loses his footing, staring up at it, taking it in as he walks, a piece of one of the trees running parallel to the ground arching up just enough to catch his toes, and he falls, catching himself on his hands and knees with enough force to jar his entire body, the ground slick and sticky with dirt as wet as the air, the trees’ leaves crunching beneath his knees as he pushes himself up and brushes the dirt from his hands onto the poncho Han loaned him, his heart racing and wrists smarting, his knees registering mild complaint that stretches up his thighs.

The urge to cry presents itself in his throat, hard like a shard of sandstone and glowing with shame. He swallows around it, drawing his knees to his chest and sucking in a deep breath, his skin prickling in the darkness pressing close around him, darker and heavier and more alive than anything he ever experienced back home. Too dark for him to close his eyes, the fear of the unseen gripping his heart and keeping his eyes wide and heart pounding, worry and anxiety and terror bleeding from and around him, twisting like the breeze rustling the leaves above him. He can feel Ben reaching for him when he reaches out for the Force, desperate for control and calm, feels Leia like a whispered afterthought at the back of his mind, and he pulls at his mental shields, wanting more than anything for them to _not_ see him as he is, scared and weak and indecisive, the pilot he’s bragged about becoming running and hiding at his first chance to put his credits where his stupid mouth is.

Calm pervades his senses as Ben recedes, and Leia with him, their presence slipping away like a shadow melting under the sun, the evening darker and bigger for it, echoing emptiness when Luke lowers his shields and looks around, blinking owlishly in the darkness. He pushes himself to his feet and brushes the wet bits of tree from his trousers, his hands wet and dirty still. Pulls the borrowed poncho tight around himself, his skin prickling as he listens.

He walks.

A noise catches his attention as he goes, moving more slowly, now, minding the ground under his feet. A noise like the rush of air around him, but lower, its timber deeper, like a man’s voice compared to a boy’s. Water, he discovers, stepping out from a line of trees to the place where the sound is the loudest. Moving water, more than he’s ever seen in one place before, the bulk of it flowing in a line away from him, away from the hidden base, its surface dark, reflecting the stars, the glow of the red planet in the distance. Moving the long strand plants that have bowed to touch the surface, the water pulling at them but doing so gently enough that they stay rooted in the earth, murmuring fretfully along the water’s ripples. Luke walks towards them, entranced, and crouches, his knees protesting from his fall. Reaches out to touch, pulling one strand free of the water. Feeling the cold water run along the length of his fingers as he does, colder than anything he’s ever felt.

“If you fall in, I ain’t pullin’ you out,” is all Han says, standing behind him, but he’s _right_ behind him and Luke isn’t expecting it, his boots woefully ill-suited for the wet grass beneath them, not nearly so secure as they were in the sands on Tatooine, so he startles, trying to whip around to see the source of the voice, and his feet don’t do what he’s expecting them to, so he loses his balance and falls backwards into the water, the cold rush of it immediately soaking through his clothing and into his bones, taking his breath with it, all of the air in the galaxy rushing down the length of the stream, leaving Luke to gasp and flail, jarring in his panic his still-sore ankle against the bottom of the stream hard enough that, for just a moment, the stars overhead aren’t the only ones he sees.

Han, at least, proves himself to be a liar, cursing in what Luke assumes is a Corellian dialect and dropping to his knees, holding his hand out for Luke to grab onto, his eyes wild as he hauls Luke out of the stream and up onto solid ground, his hands everywhere as Luke catches his breath, pushing Luke’s hair back from his face, squeezing his shoulders hard enough to wring water from the sodden poncho.

“You’re the most uncoordinated creature I’ve ever met,” he grumbles as he helps Luke to his feet, his hands warm and strong as he herds Luke up the hill, away from the water, and Luke would object, both to the insult and to Han’s pushiness, except that he’s shivering, _hard,_ and his legs aren’t working like he expects them to, as a result, Han’s arm around him giving him something to hold on to as they walk, the heat coming off Han’s body as welcome as the cool water Luke used to drink after coming in from playing in the dunes. “Didn’t think you’d actually fall in.”

“You surprised me,” Luke says, his voice coming out thin and reedy, his lips and tongue awkward with cold.

“Yeah I noticed,” Han says. “Didn’t think it was _possible_ to sneak up on Jedi. Didn’t your Force ... _magic_ or whatever tell you I was there?”

Luke shakes his head, which makes water drip down his neck, the icy tendrils of sensation an absolute _misery_ in his current state. “I didn’t hear you,” he says.

“Yeah, well,” Han says. He flexes his hand where it’s tight around Luke’s side, his fingers tapping a fretful rhythm. “Might turn out for the best, though, you takin’ a midnight dip in freezing water.”

“How?” Luke says, the word coming out with some difficulty, his teeth chattering hard enough to make speaking a challenge.

Han shrugs. “Heard from your princess you’re flying the suicide mission tomorrow,” he says. “Now, I don’t know much about _this_ rebellion, but I’d be willing to bet they won’t waste their X-wing on a pilot too sick to fly. You end up sick, you’ll stay grounded. Fly a mission for ‘em later on that has _some_ chance of succeeding.”

A tiny flicker of annoyance sputters in Luke’s chest. “If we don’t succeed tomorrow, Yavin IV will be destroyed,” he manages through his chattering teeth. “We’ll _all_ die if the mission fails.”

“Yeah, that’s a rough deal,” Han says, “but that’s war. All you’ve gotta do is make sure you’re not planet-side when the bombing run fails. Won’t have to deal with the Empire shooting at us if they’re focused on blowin’ up the planet. You and your family are welcome on the _Falcon_ with me ‘n Chewie when we launch. Your princess, too, if you can tear her away from her ideals long enough to see reason.”

The flicker of annoyance catches and spreads, warming into a proper temper. “They _need_ me,” Luke tells him, just as he told Ben and his aunt and uncle.

“They _need_ a miracle,” Han says.

He keeps his arm tight around Luke, tight enough that Luke doesn’t even try to shove him away, despite his temper smouldering in his chest. He’s opening his mouth with a retort when Han distracts him, shouldering open a door Luke wouldn’t’ve even _noticed_ if he’d been alone, its durasteel surface so covered in scorch-marks and long loops of plants that it matches the stone and earth surrounding it. He walks with Han past a Rebel soldier as the door slams behind them, the woman’s eyes going a little wide as she takes in Luke’s soaked and bedraggled state, but she doesn’t speak to them, adjusting her grip on the blaster in her hands as she resumes her beat. Her back’s turned when Han drags Luke into a communal ‘fresher and starts stripping him unceremoniously of his clothes, but it’s mortifying all the same, Luke’s hands too numb with chill for him to do much more than sullenly cooperate, bracing himself against the wall and lifting his feet one at a time so Han can yank off his boots, ducking forward so Han can tug off the poncho, the drag of wet linen against his chest and belly as Han strips him out of his tunic plainly miserable. He pushes Han’s hands away when Han reaches for the waistband of his trousers, and Han doesn’t fight him, stepping aside to strip out of his own clothes, his movements considerably more coordinated and fluid than Luke’s, Luke stumbling a little as he pulls his trousers and pants down his legs, shivering as he cups his hands over his groin, covering himself.

Han shows no similar modesty, tossing his clothes into a controlled mess at the far side of the room before sauntering over to the shower stem at the center of the room and reaching for the knob. “Now, I’m no slouch at the gambling table,” he says, glancing at Luke over his shoulder, “so I’d be willing to bet substantial credits you’ve never had a water-shower before.” He slants a crooked grin at Luke, blinking slowly twice. “Tell me, d’you think I’d win?”

And with that, he twists the knob and water -- _lots_ of water -- comes down from the nozzle with a hiss that makes Luke take a step back, staring at it, at the billow of smoke forming around it, heavy and wet like the air outside, not acrid like he’s expecting it to be when it touches his face. Shyness forgotten, he steps forward, fascinated, and reaches for the water, his fingertips touching it, the streams solid against his fingers but melting around them all the same, the pressure enough to move the padding of his palm where the streams touch it, water flowing down his arm as his palm overflows, warm like the sands just after the first sun sets. Foreign and fascinating and wonderful; the best thing he’s ever felt.

Han’s watching him when he looks up, the man’s grin gone, replaced by a soft look that makes the hairs at the back of Luke’s neck stand up.

“What?” he says.

“Nothin’. Twist the knob left if it’s too warm for you. Right to get it warmer.”

He twists the next knob over as he speaks, starting a second stream of water, his eyes squeezed shut as he steps under the spray, rubbing his fingers through his hair, pushing it away from his face as the water soaks it, rubbing his hands over his face next. Luke watches him, oddly fascinated. Copies him, as best he can, learning quickly to hold his breath when he’s face-first in the water, the warmth of the water remaining in his cheeks and nose and forehead longer than he’d’ve expected it to when he steps back, letting the spray hit him in the chest and belly instead, his fingers tingling as he wipes the water from his eyes. His skin’s red where he thinks he’s maybe got the water a little too warm, for all that it isn’t burning him, his belly splotchy with it, sensitive to his own touch when Han pauses mid-bathing to explain soap to him, the slick feel of the hard bar significantly different from familiar herbs and oils Luke’s known since he was old enough to bathe himself in his family’s sonic shower. He watches, fascinated, as Han bathes himself, his hands white with soap, leaving patterns in his skin as he washes himself, the lines of bone and muscle criss-crossed with the tracks left by his fingertips, the uneven lines painted by water-drops falling from his hair.

He’s been staring long enough that he’s fairly certain Han’s noticed, his face going warm as he looks away, memory replaying the patterns in the soap that led down to where Luke _knows_ he shouldn’t’ve been looking. He turns his back on the temptation to look anyway and focuses on washing himself, which affords him a bit of privacy as he washes between his legs, the feel of the soap compelling against his sensitive parts, his senses heightened by the _feel_ of Han watching him, a mental image of himself _(blotchy pink from the warm water and visibly tense as he washes, just the barest hint of his genitals visible as he spreads his legs to wash between his thighs)_ as clear as a holoprojection when he reaches for Han, confirming his suspicions that he’s being watched. It makes him feel a little less awkward about sneaking a glance at Han’s body when he turns to rinse himself, his rational mind cataloguing the differences between them, Han darker all over than he is, his coloring highlighting the bright white scars peppered across his skin. Han’s chest covered in dark curls that grow thicker on his belly. His cock soft but not small. Different from Luke’s, the head fully exposed, no sheath covering it.

“Your leg’s healing well,” he says when he looks up and finds Han staring unapologetically at him.

Han looks down at his own calf like he’s never seen it before, the dark hair of his leg conspicuously absent around the vivid gash gone shiny with age and accelerated, artificial healing, the new skin not yet emerged. He flexes the muscle a few times, showing off the elasticity of the skin. Shrugs.

“I’ve had worse,” he says.

“What’s the worst you’ve had?” Luke wants to know, easing his back into the water just to feel the stream slip up and over his shoulders. He’s clean, all traces of soap gone from his skin when he rubs his hands over himself, but he’s hesitant to step out of the water, the warmth and power of it compelling, addictive.

Han ducks his head under the spray once more, then turns off the water, pushing his hair back from his face as he does, making it drip down his back. “Had a kidney stolen once on Nar Shaddaa,” he says. “Chewie got it back for me, but I was laid up for a few days while it healed and got used to being in my body again. Got shot in the ear once on Socorro, ruptured my eardrum. Gettin’ _that_ replaced was expensive. Worth it, though -- lost my balance a lot without it.” He crosses the room to a small crate that has linens stacked in it, tosses one to Luke. Proceeds to rub another all over himself, drying the water from his hair, his skin. “Had a Hutt put a price on my left arm back on Tatooine not too long ago. Funny story about that, actually: He paid full price for it when it was delivered to him, had it preserved and mounted with a blaster in the hand. I’m not kidding, I’ve seen it. Only it ain’t _mine._ Dunno whose it is or how the seller convinced the Hutt that it was the genuine article, but --” He holds out his arm, wiggling his fingers just inches from Luke’s nose “-- isn’t mine.”

Luke looks from Han’s hand to the man’s face and chokes on a laugh. “Are you serious?”

“Can’t make this shit up, kid,” Han says, grinning, “I’m not that creative. I’ll show you sometime, if you ever want to go back home. Been thinkin’ for a while now to go steal it from him, might as well do it if I’m in the neighborhood. Make a nice decoration for the _Falcon,_ don’t you think?”

Luke snorts at the thought. “I'll help steal it, if you want,” he says.

Han’s grin goes impossibly wider. “I'll hold you to that,” he says. He's still grinning as he ties the linen around his waist, freeing his hands to gather up the bundle of his clothes. “Grab your stuff,” he says, nodding at the soggy mess of Luke's clothes slowly dripping water across the floor. “One’a the pilots said there's a cleaner down here, we can get your gear cleaned up before you put ‘em back on. Unless you _want_ to walk back to the bunks in a towel. Could be fun, if we spin our story right. Get a rise outta your folks.”

Luke shakes his head, the warmth from the shower and Han's stories cooling already, the longer he stands in the damp air. He ties the linen -- _towel_ \-- like Han did and gathers up his trousers and tunic and socks and pants, wraps the lot of the up in the borrowed poncho, his boots heavy, dangling from his hands. He keeps his clothes as far from his bare skin as he can as he follows Han down a narrow passage to a room cluttered with leftover electronics, his arms and chest pricked over with gooseflesh as he dumps his clothes into a cleaner that looks like it's older than he is and squawks like a canyon vulture as it runs but cleans his clothes well enough, the material vaguely warm against his skin as he dresses, soft in contrast to the towel he drapes over his head, scrubbing at the wetness remaining in his hair as Han runs his own clothes through the cleaner.

“Could get up to a lot of trouble, y’know, you and I,” Han says when the cleaner goes blessedly quiet, its hinges only squeaking a little as Han opens it. He meets Luke’s gaze and holds it, none of his usual humor in his expression. “Could be fun. Good money in it, too, the way you fly.”

Luke lifts both eyebrows at him. “Thanks,” he says, slowly, watching Han for signs that he’s being teased.

“Lots’a places your folks could disappear, too,” Han continues, pulling up his trousers and fastening his gun-belt across his hips. “Places easier to make a living than Tatooine. Better weather. Better _everything.”_ He looks up once he’s satisfied with the position of his holster, meets Luke’s gaze unblinking. “I mean it, Luke. I get that it's a good cause you're trying to join here, and I get that you want to help the princess, but let’s be honest: you're bettin’ against the house on this one. Flyin’ against that monstrosity tomorrow like a hero -- sure, you'll die a hero, but you _will_ die.” He shrugs. “Seems like a waste to me.”

Luke crosses his arms over his chest. “We've got the station schematics,” he says. “We know exactly where to strike.”

“And exactly how hard the shot’ll be to make,” Han says, “never mind that you'll be takin’ it while dodging god knows how many TIEs and mounted sentries in the process.” He shrugs into his vest and steps away from the cleaner, close enough to Luke that Luke has to tip his chin up to look him in the eye, the difference in their height more pronounced than it's felt, before. “You can't talk this group of idealists out of their crazy plan, but you don't have to die alongside ‘em just because they gave you couple’a compliments and a shiny toy to die in. Trust me on this one. There'll be other ships and other causes. Plenty of ‘em -- it's a big galaxy. Hell, I’ll help you _find_ some of ‘em, if you want.”

Luke swallows. “It'll work,” he says, a small, terrified weariness rising in him like the warm wet smoke around the water-shower’s stream, his earlier fears allayed only by a margin in the face of his own certainty, the glare of undeniable truth he feels as he puts words to it, says them out loud. “If I fly with them, it'll work. I _know_ it will.”

“You can't guarantee those kinds of odds, kid,” Han says. “I don’t care _how_ good you are, you can’t --”

“The Empire rose because enough people didn't like the odds of opposing them,” Luke interrupts, his memory of his aunt's history lessons vague, at best, but clear enough that he's pretty sure he's right in his assertion, adrenaline fueling the rest. “I don't want to do that. Not now. Not _ever._ Not when I have the chance to help.”

Han frowns down at him for a moment, clearly frustrated, then leans in, fast, and presses a kiss to Luke's mouth, something like desperation pressing against Luke’s mind as he kisses back, an ache not entirely his own settling in his chest as Han pulls back, licking his lips.

 _“Falcon’ll_ launch an hour before the attack,” Han says, “‘case you change your mind.”

“I won't,” Luke says, “but thanks.”

He walks back to the barracks with Han in silence, nodding goodnight to the man when he stops at the room assigned him and his aunt and uncle, his throat tightening when he slips in and finds both of them awake, clearly waiting for him to return, worried about him. He shakes his head when his uncle wants to know where he's been and nods when his aunt asks if he's all right, doesn't resist sitting beside her when she pats the mattress of the bunk where she’s seated, leans into her a little when she puts her arm around him, holding him close as if he were a child still, small enough to crawl into her lap for comfort after a bad dream or a fight with Biggs. She rests her head on his shoulder and laces her fingers with his and begins the recitation of the Prayer for Protection, his uncle's voice mingling with hers as he joins in in a duet of comfort and familiarity that makes Luke's chest ache, his cheeks wet by the time they've finished, his uncle moving to embrace him as well, holding Luke hard, his arms shaking.

\---

They stand by the following evening in the space where the _Falcon_ had been just hours before, Uncle Owen's R2 unit accompanying Luke in his Alliance X-wing, offered almost like a parting gift, a keepsake of home. Luke nods to them as his engines roar to life, Wedge’s first orders crackling across his headset. He nods to Ben as well, the old man standing apart, watching with a grim expression as Luke joins Red Squadron's exit formation, his heart in his throat and stomach in knots, tight below his ribs.

He thinks of his aunt and uncle when Biggs is killed, his childhood friend gone in little more than the hiss of static in his ear. He thinks of them when he orders Wedge to pull up, away from danger, leaving him alone in the dark grey trench. He thinks of them when the R2 unit beeps anxiously at him, alerting him that there’s a ship closing in, close enough for a clean shot. A killing blow.

The blow doesn’t come. He feels a ripple of anger and possessiveness and fear rush across his senses a heartbeat before he hears Han’s voice and Ben’s voice and takes the one-in-a-million shot that flows from him like sand pouring between his fingers, seeking its target as easily and naturally as the blade of his light-saber sought the bolts fired from the training ‘droid on the _Falcon,_ the R2 unit whistling shrilly at him as he angles his X-wing up, out of the trench, the _Falcon_ coming into view as he accelerates away from the _Death Star._ The force of the explosion rocks through him all the same, his ship shuddering and his heart thudding hard in his chest before coming to a stop, the devastating lance of _loss_ ripping through him as he grasps at the electronics covering the front of his flight-suit, his lungs heavy as he sucks in a sickly breath that does little more than make his head spin, the R2 unit beeping frantically at him as the stars blur around him, his hands falling slack to his lap just as his nav controls chime, the R2 overriding the pilot controls, maneuvering the X-wing into the appropriate descent pattern for re-entering Yavin IV’s atmosphere while Luke closes his eyes and tries to remember how to _breathe._

He’s still reeling from it when he lands and shoves open the transparisteel shell of his ship, his breathing uneven and shaky and his balance poor as he half-stumbles down the ladder one of the engineers places against the nose of the X-wing for him. He returns Wedge’s embrace when the man comes over and wraps him up in a hug that feels more like desperation than elation, feels desperation and emptiness and loss when Leia comes to his side and embraces him as well. He’s taken two steps towards his uncle and aunt, wanting with primal, single-minded intent to disappear into the comfort of their arms as if he were two years old again when he hears Han shouting his name and turns, his mind slow to process the frown on Han’s face, stark in its difference from the expressions of joy around them, Han shouldering his way through the crowd with singular intent, his hands firm when he reaches out and pulls Luke towards him, keeping him close.

“You all right?” Han says, searching Luke’s face. “Your withdrawal path was all over the place and your R2 was sending out distress signals like crazy during your descent. What happened?”

Luke shakes his head, his vision swimming a little at the memory of the wave of darkness he felt as the _Death Star_ exploded, loss and fear and silence flooding him like the water in the stream the night before, dark and cold and encompassing as it rushed over him. “I felt --” he starts, but the words don’t come, leaving him to mouth wordlessly at the air, suffocating. He shakes his head again, listing a little in Han’s grip as he does. “I don’t know.”

Han frowns at him, then looks over Luke’s shoulder, one of his thumbs worrying the seam at the shoulder of Luke’s flight-suit, the friction of it repetitive and hypnotizing, moving the air around it like soap against his skin when Luke closes his eyes. “He says he’s not hurt but he’s actin’ weird,” he hears Han say, and when he opens his eyes and tips his head in the direction Han’s looking, he finds his uncle standing at his back, hands on him immediately, supporting him, steadying him. “Get him someplace quiet, have him drink some water. Think the shockwave might’ve rattled him.”

Luke opens his mouth to insist that he’s _fine,_ a lie he’s desperate enough to think they all might believe, but as his uncle turns him, guiding him through the sea of pilots and engineers that parts for him like the trench of the _Death Star_ opening under him he feels the words die in his mouth, his body numb as he puts one foot in front of the other, leaning on his uncle as he leaves the hangar, his heart pounding in his ears.

“I felt it,” he says, once he’s alone with his aunt and uncle in a room he doesn’t recognize, his uncle steering him over to a plastimold chair, his hand heavy on Luke’s shoulder even after Luke’s sat down, the room spinning a little bit less for it. “When we -- when my shot took, and the station -- I could _feel_ it. All those people.” He looks up at his uncle, his throat tightening around the acceleration of his heart-beat. “I _killed_ them,” he says, his voice breaking. “My shot caused the explosion and it killed them. _All_ of them.”

A muscle flexes in his uncle’s jaw, his uncle glancing at his aunt before looking back to him again. “That’s how war goes, Luke,” he says. “Soldiers kill other soldiers. People die. The soldiers you killed were stationed on a weapon that destroyed an entire _planet._ They’d have to be stupid to not know _someone_ would come after them for it.”

Luke swallows hard. “I felt them die,” he says, his voice coming out a hoarse whisper. “Just now. Just like Alderaan. I _felt_ it. I _felt_ them --”

“A difficulty any young Jedi suffers when born into an age of war,” he hears Ben say, the old man’s words crossing the thin air and easing the tension in Luke’s throat, Ben’s expression calm but sad as he crosses the room with a pouch of water in his hand and Leia at his side. “I regret that you both are so new to your training and so close to the horrors of the Empire. You will suffer greatly for it, and there is, unfortunately, little I or anyone else can do to save you from it.”

Luke takes the water and sips at it mechanically. _We could have protected him from it_ his uncle doesn’t say but Luke can hear it all the same, echoed in the subtle shift of his aunt’s body, turned away from Ben, towards Uncle Owen. _I don’t want this is there a way to take it away from me_ radiates from Leia, deafening in its endless repetition, the pressure under her breastbone mirrored in Luke’s, painful and real enough that he presses the heel of his hand under the electronics panel at the front of his flight-suit, feels the thump of his heartbeat, the uneven movement of his ribs as he breathes. Leia watches him but says nothing, pale and still and strong when he looks up at her, stronger than he would have ever, _ever_ guessed a person could be, even a woman. He reaches for her, curious, and feels what might have been an attempt at a mental shield, like a chunk of sandstone sticking up from the wind-swept dunes. He finds beyond that worry and anger lain over vindictive joy and exhilaration, weariness as deep as the night sky beyond that.

“I think that’s enough of that,” Ben says, softly, jarring him from his focus. “Concentrate your energy on centering yourself, allowing yourself to reflect. Don’t force it: acknowledge each thought as it comes and allow it to pass.” He reaches down, plucking the now-empty water pouch from Luke’s hand. “Try not to dwell on any one thought or seek to avoid any other. They will do little more than grow more powerful over time, if you do.”

He turns at the sound of the door to the small room opening, Luke leaning forward to see around him, pushing himself unsteadily to his feet when he sees Wedge at the door, wearing his flight-suit still and offering a plastic, placid smile and a nod of greeting to the group as he steps into the room, closing the door quietly behind himself.

“Wondered where you’d gone, Luke,” he says, striding across the room and touching Luke on the arm, every inch the commander he was the night before, testing Luke’s abilities, prepping him for the mission. “Wanted to let you know that there’s something of a celebration coming together in the main meeting hall, if you’re up for it. Plenty of folks interested in pouring you a drink and shaking your hand.”

“Thank you,” Luke says. “I’m sorry I left. I was -- I just --”

Wedge holds up both hands. “-- needed a minute, sure,” he says. “Perfectly understandable. That was your first run, and a helluva first run, at that.” He glances at Ben, at Owen and Beru. Dips his body in a shallow bow to Leia. “Take your time, the drinks can wait. I reserve the honor of pouring your first, though, if and when you do join us.”

Then with a wink, he’s gone, the door sliding quietly closed behind him as he goes. Luke doesn’t collapse back into the uncomfortable plastimold chair the second he’s alone with his family, but it’s tempting, the quiet of the room more appealing than the prospect of a room full of people, the pressure of celebrating the loss he can still feel, deep in his chest.

“You’ll want to avoid imbibing too much alcohol,” Ben says, looking at him sidelong. “The results won’t be pleasant, if you do.”

Luke nods. “All right.”

“Don’t stay too long,” his aunt says, her voice soft and fragile with worry, her hands trembling a little where she has them clasped in front of her. “Go straight to medical if you’re dizzy again.”

“I will,” Luke says. “I promise.” It feels like a lie in his mouth so he pulls his aunt close and kisses her forehead, keeps his arm around her as they leave the small meeting room, the hollowness he’d felt significantly reduced by the time he lets go, watching her lace her fingers with his uncle’s, wiping her eyes as they make their way down the corridor to the civilian barracks.

“Your aunt is wonderful,” Leia says, sliding her hand around the bend of his elbow. “She loves you so much.”

“Yeah,” Luke says. He reaches across to rest his other hand on Leia’s, something he’s seen adults do before. Her hand feels small under his, small and fragile and warm, her grip tightening almost imperceptibly as they walk into the large meeting room together, the memory of her touch remaining even after she’s pulled away from him, melting into the noise and movement in the room. Wedge spots him before he can follow Leia and comes over to shake his hand and pull him into a rough, back-slapping hug, a scant dozen other pilots doing the same, some ruffling his hair, most of them commenting on his shooting, congratulating him on his aim. He’s flustered and off-balance when he spots Han slouched in a corner with a drink in his hand and Chewbacca at his side, the man’s posture painting for Luke a clear picture of how many drinks he’s already enjoyed, his cheeks a bit darker than usual, his brow maybe a little damp with sweat. His gait’s steady when he pushes himself up and comes over to give Luke a congratulatory hug, though, the embrace maybe just a shade too strong, lasting just a moment longer than Luke’s expecting it to.

“You all right, kid?” Han says to him, low enough that no one else will hear him.

“Yeah.”

Han steps back but leaves his hands on Luke’s shoulders. “Lying ain’t a good look on that pretty face of yours,” he says.

“I’m not --”

“You should have a drink, at least,” Han interrupts, turning Luke and slinging an arm around his shoulders. “The great Commander Antilles had a stash of Whyren’s Reserve that he’s brought out to share. The real thing, none’a that degreaser rot-gut from your homeworld.” He herds Luke over to Wedge, who stops mid-conversation with General Dodonna to greet both of them, brightening when Han says _Luke’s ready for that drink now, Commander,_ a genuine smile on his face as he pours four glasses and raises his own in a toast.

“To Luke Skywalker and Han Solo,” he says. “Strangers yesterday, saviors of Yavin IV and the Rebellion today.”

“Hear hear,” the general says, taking a hefty swallow of his drink.

Luke takes a sip. It’s no different from the liquor Han shared with him on the _Falcon,_ save that it maybe burns a little more going down. He takes a larger swallow next, mentally calculating how many swallows it’ll take to empty his glass. At his side, Han laughs, draping his arm around Luke’s shoulders once again.

 _“That’s_ the real thing,” he says on a satisfied sigh. “Pretty good, huh?”

Luke takes another swallow. “Yeah.”

Han laughs again, his breath warm against Luke’s ear, and jostles him some. “Really gotta work on your lying,” he says under his breath, turning his head so that Luke can feel his lips moving, his breath making Luke’s hair flutter. “Don’t wince when you swallow, you’ll offend every red-blooded Corellian in this star system if you do.”

Luke catches himself smiling, at that. “Thanks.”

“Any time.”

Han sticks close, acting progressively looser and more inebriated as the night wears on, for all that he doesn’t take another drink until Luke’s feet are starting to go numb from standing so long, his arm sore from all the handshakes he’s gotten. He plucks the glass from Luke’s hand when Luke mentions turning in for the night and tosses back the last swallow of Whyren’s Reserve still in the bottom, yawning around a complaint that he’s tired. “Feel like I took on the Empire today,” he says loudly enough for the general and lieutenant speaking softly with Leia not far off to hear him. “Can’t imagine why.”

He winks at Leia as he says it and nudges Luke in the back, hard enough that Luke has to take a step forward in order to keep his balance. Leia rolls her eyes and excuses herself from the conversation she’d been having, ignoring Han completely as she pulls Luke into a hug, the front panel of his flight-suit awkward between them, pressing at her nose. Her hair smells like engine grease and exhaust when he leans down to return her embrace, her lips warm when she tips her chin up to kiss him on the cheek. She doesn’t kiss Han on the cheek or hug him when Luke steps away and Han says _where’s my kiss?,_ instead dipping her head in a nod when Han tosses off a lazy salute to her, his arm around Luke’s shoulders once again as they leave the noise and light of the meeting room, the relative quiet of the corridor a relief by comparison, his gait just mismatched enough with Luke’s to capture and hold Luke’s attention, his mind cataloguing each step with hypnotized intensity until Han stops, jostling him a little.

“You fallin’ asleep on me there, Luke?” he says.

“No.”

“Uh- _huh.”_

“I’m _not,”_ Luke says.

“Congratulations. You probably should be.” Han lifts his hand to ruffle Luke’s hair a little, an almost-smile warm on one side of his mouth. “Know you heard it a million times in there,” he says softly, almost thoughtfully when Luke says _what?_ “but you flew really well out there. I thought you were crazy, last night, when you said things’d go okay as long as you were flying, but you were right.” He presses the pad of his thumb against the line of Luke’s jaw, drags it back in a rough caress. “I’m glad,” he says. “Glad you were right.”

Luke swallows around the knot working its way up his throat. “Thank you,” he says, “for coming back. For saving me.”

Han snorts. “You saved an entire planet, kid,” he says. “I just took a couple’a shots along the way.”

He’s wrong but arguing would require far more energy than Luke has, so he rolls his eyes and pulls Han down and kisses him on the mouth, tasting the smoky flavor of the Whyren’s Reserve when Han makes a low sound in his throat and slips his tongue into his mouth, as easy and natural as breathing, nothing rushed about it, his arms sliding around Luke’s body, keeping him close as they kiss. He pulls away only when the light in the corridor changes, the door beside them opening, Uncle Owen looking from Luke to Han and back again, muttering _excuse me_ before closing the door once again.

“That’s what I get for bringin’ you back home instead of taking you back to my quarters,” Han grumbles when Luke steps back, licking his lips. “Could, still, if they’re gonna give you trouble for this.”

“Why would they give me trouble?” Luke says.

“Dunno. Offer stands if you want, though.”

Luke shakes his head. “I need to go through my exercises,” he says. “But thank you. For _everything,_ Han. I owe you one.”

Han considers him for a moment, then leans in close and kisses him once more on the mouth. “I’ll put it on your tab,” he says.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey, happy _Star Wars_ day! I plan to celebrate by wearing to work my [_Star Wars_ trousers](http://i.imgur.com/HhjrFSK.jpg), [R2D2 vest](http://i.imgur.com/AGTVIpB.jpg), _Star Wars_ headband, [Rebel Alliance](http://i.imgur.com/xIynOeF.jpg) [earrings](http://i.imgur.com/eKWZpso.jpg) with “I love you” printed on one half and “I know” printed on the other, and a homemade ryshcate to share with whomever doesn’t make fun of my ensemble or say that _Star Wars_ is silly. Kindness to nerds and geeks pays off, my friends, never doubt it.

So this installment is arguably my favorite so far, for all that it’s the “Oops I accidentally rewrote one of my favorite scenes from the orig-trig and _I like it too much to do anything about it_ ” chapter. No shout of “Carrie!” for this Luke as he climbs down from his X-wing, no sloppy hug for Han when he comes over (probably hoping for a kiss), no happy ending for everyone or _anyone,_ really. A pity, that. Instead, Luke gets war-guilt and a bit of PTSD and his uncle catching him kissing everyone’s favorite smuggler. Ain’t life just a basket’a peaches.

Side-note: I have a **_thing_** for Luke discovering water (as if [the last long-fic I wrote about exactly that](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5983744/chapters/13751308) didn’t clue anyone in to that fact) and it just gets worse, the longer I’m in this fandom. I’m a water-baby m’self, can’t get enough of the stuff -- swimming, being out in the rain, wading in rivers and lakes and ponds, being anywhere _near_ a waterfall, gods preserve me. So to imagine a character who has never had exposure to water in large quantities and then gets to experience it for the first time as an adult, that’s just ... _my jam._ Unf.

Oh, and Han taking a shower. That’s more Luke’s jam than my jam, but Luke taking a shower is my jam, so really, we all win.

Except Leia, who I assume showered alone. Poor woman, I need to give her some lovin’.


	6. The Heroes (?) of Yavin IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke shakes his head, schooling his face back into a solemn expression when the doors before them open, the room beyond impossibly cavernous, the walls carved from solid stone that stretches up as high as the trees beyond, maybe higher, cool daylight filtering in through vine-draped carvings that reach nearly from the floor to the ceiling, more pilots and soldiers and officers turning at attention to stare at Luke and Han than Luke would have imagined were part of the Rebellion, easily five times the number of sentients he’d seen in any one place during his time on Yavin IV.
> 
> “If you make a break for it _right now,”_ Han mutters to him, “I’ll follow and cover you,” and Luke has to bite the inside of his cheek not to grin.

** Chapter Six **

_The Heroes (?) of Yavin IV_

Sleep is torture.

Luke dreams of the explosion, over and over and over, sees his aunt and uncle and Ben and Han and Leia standing in the docking bay of the _Death Star_ as the flames rush forward, engulfing them, burning them alive. He strains against the restraints of his flight-seat, desperate to save them, but the straps hold him back, tightening down on him, breaking his ribs and choking him until he jerks awake in a cold sweat, gasping for air and dizzy with disorientation.

He dreams of Yavin IV, its swirling blues and greens wrapped in gossamer clouds, cool to his senses even as he gazes upon it from the depths of space, dreams of a hand on his shoulder, heavy and proprietary and proud, squeezing as a blinding beam of light fills the void before him, the planet rippling into an explosion that cracks fissures in Luke's soul as the shockwave rears up and out, engulfing him, the hand on his shoulder anchoring him, pulling him back against a strong chest, Han's eyes warm when Luke twists to look at the figure steadying him, Han's mouth gentle and warm against his as he murmurs _you killed us all,_ the words breathed like poison across Luke’s lips.

He dreams of stars swirling around him as he gasps for breath, of anger and fear making his hands shake as he pulls off the mask covering his face and adjusts the ventilator jarred away from his mouth, breathable air rushing across the curve of his chin, wasted like water dripping thick as blood from his hands, swirling around his feet, pooling where Han's body lies lifeless, blocking the drain in the communal 'fresher, the space around him swirling in darkness that breathes freezing air against his skin as he loses consciousness, trusting the systems whirring around him to keep him alive.

The corridor is dark still when he slips out of the barracks, wrapped in Han's poncho and shivering already as he walks through the base. The soldiers on duty nod to him, greet him by name as he goes by. One salutes him, thanking him for his service. Luke greets them in answer, the words awkward in his mouth, clumsy. Wants, irrationally, to punch something by the time he's escaped the dim artificial lighting into the open air of Yavin IV, the night air cold, colder than anything he's ever felt before as he walks, craving the silence and darkness of the trees with almost animal intensity, the glow of the Force almost tangible to him when he settles at the base of one of the larger trees, the ground hard against his tailbone but the breeze somewhat diminished, discouraged by the thick, rough wood of the tree.

He tucks his knees up tight against his chest and pulls the poncho over his legs, the warmth of his own body slowly seeping into the fabric, gathering close around him, and closes his eyes, the phantoms he'd feared the night before conspicuous in their absence, like a missing limb, a nerve gone numb. Breathing deeply, he reaches out, curiosity dimmed under the ache high in his throat.

Leia lies in her bunk, compelled into sleep by medicine flowing on each beat of her heart, her dreams vivid but distant, restrained from penetrating the depths of chemically induced rest. Wedge is awake but not alert, sitting in the open cockpit of his X-wing, concentrating his mind more fully on _not_ thinking than whatever it is his hands are doing, the drag of alcohol making his eyes burn, his mouth dry, discomfort he welcomes as distraction or penance, Luke can’t tell. Han is in the _Falcon,_ asleep and considerably less inebriated than Wedge, calm and comfortable in a way that strikes sharp contrast against the others Luke can feel, his aunt and uncle curled together under their blanket, seeking warmth; Ben sleeping in a seated position, fully shielded from Luke but present and oddly alert, like a sentry ‘droid set to standby. Soldiers moving like sands shifting before a storm, preparing to abandon the base, following orders to take the fight elsewhere, weapons and blankets and rations and medical supplies and scant personal effects all portioned away, packed into neat boxes, the strange transient comforts of life at war.

 _You grow strong, my son,_ whispers across his mind; no voice to it, but it’s unmistakably his father, the distant familiarity and acceptance of it sending a shiver down the length of Luke’s spine to the hard ground beneath his tailbone, the chill of it seeping up his thighs.

 _Strong enough to defeat you,_ Luke thinks, concentrating as hard as he can. His face aches with it, his eyes squeezed tightly shut and teeth clenched. He recognizes it and relaxes, feeling foolish as he does.

 _You would seek to defeat that which you do not understand_ comes in response, breathed like the wordless voices in his nightmares, known like a memory in his heart, and he rejects it, the revulsion he feels at the words rising in his throat, bile burning as he swallows, but he has no answer, no response that matches the calm weight of his father’s assertion. Anger rises in him as he opens his eyes and looks out across the monochrome shadows of the trees, his pulse thick with it, crackling like electricity just beneath his skin, the energy of it ugly and sour, heavy with frustration.

 _I don’t understand why anyone has to die_ he thinks, his eyes going unfocused as he forms a mental image of raising a wall around his thoughts, straight and strong and thick as the trees around him, bending in the breeze but blocking it, unbroken under the expanse of night sky. _And I will never kill anyone again._

His father does not answer. Luke tells himself that he’s blocked any response that might have come, and it doesn’t feel entirely like a lie.

\---

He walks, after that, the motion helping him sort his thoughts and keep his heart-rate up, the warmth of it almost enough to keep him from shivering as he wanders. He ends up sitting by the stream by the time the sun has begun to rise, bathing the landscape in a wash of colors more vibrant and distracting than any sunrise on Tatooine ever was, his sleep-deprived mind latching onto the differences and cataloguing them with a sort of manic intensity, the lack of sleep and exertion of his long, cold walk lulling him into a numb trance, his attention focused fully on the color of the sky reflected in the surface of the water, fragmented only when he feels Ben approaching, the old man’s presence projected clearly and intentionally, giving Luke time to stand and brush the wet bits of leaf and dirt from his trousers, sniffling a little where the chill has made his nose run.

“You’ve not slept,” Ben says by way of greeting, once he’s only a few paces away, Uncle Owen’s R2 unit following along at his side, its dome twisting as it considers Luke.

“I slept some,” Luke tells him.

Ben doesn’t argue with him but he doesn’t believe him, either, treating Luke to a look of paternal condescension as he walks to the edge of the water, considering it. “You see nightmares when you sleep,” he says, and it isn’t a question so Luke doesn’t answer it. “But you find comfort here.” He turns, considering Luke over his shoulder. “Don’t you.”

Luke shrugs. “I guess.”

“Do you know why?”

“The water?” Luke guesses.

Ben nods. “Precisely. There is power in it, and a deep connection to the Force surrounding it. That is why Master Yoda decided that you should be raised on Tatooine by your father’s brother. To keep you isolated from the Force, invisible to your father’s eyes, and to the Emperor’s influence beyond that.” He folds his hands into the sleeves of his robes, turning to watch the flow of the stream, the strand plants moving fretfully at its edges. “I was hesitant to agree with that decision, when you were an infant, left in the care of your aunt and uncle -- a young couple a the time, only just newly joined together, not in the least prepared to become parents -- but I see now the wisdom behind Master Yoda’s plans and the concerns that formed their foundation.”

Luke blinks at him. “I don’t understand,” he admits after a long, tired moment.

Ben turns. “You’ve been speaking with your father,” he says.

Guilt tugs at Luke’s stomach. He wraps his arms around himself, watching the water instead of looking up when Ben’s gaze starts to make him feel like a misbehaving child receiving a scolding. “I think I shielded my thoughts from him,” he says. “I tried to, anyway.”

“Yes, and you did well,” Ben says, “but he’s confirmed that you are his son, now, and that your heart is still young and open to influence. The shielding techniques I taught you won’t be enough, should you encounter him again, and certainly not if you meet him face-to-face. Not if he _wants_ to know something. He’ll pluck it from you as easily as you could pluck the grasses from the edge of the stream, if the fancy takes him.”

Luke swallows, pushing aside the fear that rises in his throat. “He said something, earlier,” he says, “about wanting to defeat what I don’t understand. What did he mean?”

Ben frowns, pulling one hand free of his robe to stroke his beard. “I would assume that he means to show you the power of the Dark Side, which he has enjoyed now for your entire lifetime, and a bit longer before that,” he says, “just as it was shown to him, offered to him as a choice.” He shakes his head when Luke’s eyes go wide, tucks his hand back into the sleeve of his robe. “Yes, Luke. A choice. I wish I could tell you he was forced to do the things that he did, Luke, that he felt he had no say in the matter. But in truth, Anakin had a choice, and he _chose_ the path of darkness, the way of violence and hatred and pain, and the galaxy has suffered for it, very deeply and -- in some cases -- permanently.”

“Why?” Luke hears himself say. “Why would he _want_ that? Any of it?”

“A good question for another time,” Ben says. “I’m afraid they’ve sent me to collect you, rather than to train you or put your mind at ease. There’s something of a ceremony planned to honor your victory yesterday, and they’ll have nowhere to hang your medal of honor if you’re absent, save for perhaps Captain Solo’s neck, along with the medal they intend to hang there for his participation. He’s not fled yet, so far as I know, and would likely be grateful to have you at his side during the ceremony.”

At his side, the R2 unit beeps a question about _his_ medal of honor, his tone so indignant that Luke catches himself smiling, some of the weight of the night lifting from his chest. “I’ll ask Commander Antilles,” he promises the little ‘droid. “You certainly earned the recognition.”

The R2 beeps at him and rolls up close enough to nudge him in the thigh, then pivots and rolls up the hill, back towards the base.

“I think it’s taken a liking to you,” Ben says as he and Luke fall into step behind the ‘droid. “Wouldn’t leave my side, once it learned I was coming to find you. Terribly loyal behavior for a ‘droid, I would think.”

“He saved me, yesterday,” Luke says. “After the explosion, when I felt -- when I realized what I’d done. I wasn’t able to fly the ship. I couldn’t focus. Artoo took over, got us into the right descent pattern.”

“Very heroic of him.”

Luke nods, then stops, Ben looking at him inquisitively as he stops as well. “I won’t do it again, Ben,” he says. “Anything like that. I don’t want to kill anyone _ever_ again.”

Ben sighs. “A bold statement, and a tall order to fill, in these violent times.”

“I’m _serious,_ I can’t --”

“You can,” Ben says, “and we will see you safely to Master Yoda so that you can learn what you will need to know in order to make the choice yourself when the time comes for you to choose.” He offers Luke a wintery smile, reaching out to squeeze Luke’s shoulder, the strength in his grip a comfort, oddly like a hug. “First, though, we’ll see you honored as the hero of this little planet. You owe that much to them, at least.”

\---

Luke thinks about Ben’s words as he stands next to Han a scant hour later, his thoughts scattered and eyes unfocused on the tall doors before him, his temples aching with a hint of a headache as he pulls his mental shields up as best he can, testing them, reaching out for Leia, for Ben, feeling them reach back to him with ease, his failures stacking up before him like sand against the far eastern wall of his childhood home. He’s expecting the touch of Han’s elbow when it comes, senses the tension gathering in Han’s muscles, the air moving around him as he stretches out, but the nudge of it against his upper arm is annoying all the same, an unwelcome interruption to his already fractured concentration, his failed exercises.

“Nice jacket,” Han whispers, looking Luke up and down when Luke glares at him.

“It’s Wedge’s,” Luke tells him.

“You’re _kidding.”_

“No. Why would I be?”

“Because it’s hideous, and Corellian fashion generally isn’t?”

Luke shrugs. “Wedge said it suited me.”

“Did he.”

“Yeah.”

Han snorts. “It’d suit the floor of my quarters better,” he says, looking Luke up and down again, more slowly this time. “Could go there now, if you want. Make the introduction.”

Which is rude and irreverent and has Luke shaking his head, schooling his face back into a solemn expression when the doors before them open, the room beyond impossibly cavernous, the walls carved from solid stone that stretches up as high as the trees beyond, maybe higher, cool daylight filtering in through vine-draped carvings that reach nearly from the floor to the ceiling, more pilots and soldiers and officers turning at attention to stare at Luke and Han than Luke would have imagined were part of the Rebellion, easily five times the number of sentients he’d seen in any one place during his time on Yavin IV.

“If you make a break for it _right now,”_ Han mutters to him, “I’ll follow and cover you,” and Luke has to bite the inside of his cheek not to grin.

He isn’t laughing when Han makes good on his offer an hour later, pulling Luke away from the interminable reception following the long, boring ceremony and pushing him into his quarters, kissing him the second the door’s closed behind them, his desperation washing over Luke’s consciousness like the warm water in the shower rushing past his fingers. Only it’s not soothing like the water-shower, it’s hot and acrid and only barely conceals the animal _desire_ flowing underneath like molten sand struck by lightning in the coughing preludes of wind and static that build in the wake of a coming sandstorm. Their teeth clack in misalignment and Han steps on Luke’s foot, trying to get them over to his bunk, his body heavy enough that Luke’s foot actually kind of hurts even after Han stops standing on it, but Han doesn’t stop kissing him even when Luke winces and falters, instead tugging Luke over to his bunk with a growled _c’mon, get over here_ that goes straight to Luke’s groin.

“That jacket’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, for the record,” he says, shoving it off Luke’s shoulders and leaning close to bite Luke on the neck, the feel of it making Luke shiver, his cock swelling against his thigh in the tight confines of his trousers. “Been wanting to get you out of it since you first showed up wearin’ the damn thing.”

Luke pushes him away, making a point to take the jacket off slowly and carefully and neatly fold it before draping it over a nearby chair. “I told you, it’s not mine,” he says, stooping to pull off his boots. "Wedge's."

“Yeah and it looks better on the chair than it looked on you,” Han says. He licks his lips, his gaze dropping to Luke’s groin, the obvious swelling of his erection pressed to the side of the zipper of his trousers. “Y’know, I don’t much like your trousers, either, while we’re talkin’ about it.”

“They’re Wedge’s, too.”

“That wasn’t --” Han starts, but he shakes his head, growling a little as Luke comes over and kisses him again. "Don't even _want_ to know why you're wearing so much'a his stuff. Just want you wearin' _less_ of it."

Luke rocks his hips forward on the rush of lust that pulls through him, at that, fumbling blindly at the clasp of Han's belt. "You too," he says.

Han grins into the kiss, reaching between them to palm Luke through the thick fabric of the borrowed trousers as they kiss, pulling away only when Luke manages to get his belt unfastened and reaches into Han’s trousers and pants to _touch,_ stroking the exposed head of Han’s cock with his fingertips, then lower, grasping the full length when Han tips his head back, eyes closed and hips pushing forward in encouragement. He pulls away from that, too, slipping sideways into the bed, his face devastatingly close to Luke’s groin and his hands on Luke’s hips as he does, pulling Luke along with him, and he grins up at Luke with so much undiluted _wanting_ that Luke swallows the objections he had to Han moving away from his touch. He fumbles the shirt Wedge leant him, trying to pull it off over his head, his skin racing with prickles of sensation when Han leans close and kisses him on the belly, biting just below his navel, his hands going to the fasteners of Wedge’s trousers when Luke manages to extricate himself from his shirt and _look,_ his heart stuttering at the sight of Han biting at him and baring him and _ducking down to lick the length of his cock with his tongue,_ moaning about it like he’s the one being licked, not the other way around.

“You’re gonna want to lie down if this’s enough to get you shakin’ like that,” he says when he notices Luke watching him, his eyes sparkling mischief like he knows _exactly_ how much this is all turning Luke on. “I’m plannin’ to do things to you that’ll make you weak at the knees. Better to have you lying down before that happens. Trust me.”

He means it like one of his usual boasts, Luke can tell, like when he brags about the _Falcon_ or how well he can shoot or how many times he’s escaped certain death, but there’s a tug under Luke’s breastbone at the sound of _trust me_ that has nothing to do with the urgent animal _want_ Luke feels as he does as he’s told and lies down in Han’s bunk, choking on a surprised cry of pleasure as Han covers his cock with his mouth, sucking at him as he yanks the borrowed trousers down to mid-thigh, the sudden warmth and wetness and pressure of his tongue wrapping around Luke’s entire _being,_ condensed for one long, vibrant moment to the feel of Han touching him, the intimacy of the act magnified by the current of protectiveness and affection rushing under the potent heat of desire and conquest and victory. He flexes his hips in rhythm with the dip and pull of Han’s mouth, the tightness of the trousers pinned under Han’s weight keeping him anchored to the bed, his mind spinning and eyes refusing to focus properly when Han has to stop sucking him and sit up to strip him fully bare, his lips swollen and wet as he licks them and looks down at Luke, _really_ looking at him.

“Damn,” he murmurs, bending to run his palms up Luke’s thighs, brushing the swell of Luke’s sac with the pad of one thumb. He shakes his head when Luke makes an inquisitive sound and curls down over Luke’s body once again, wrapping his hand around the base of Luke’s cock and sucking on him harder and faster than before, growling as he pushes at Luke’s leg, encouraging him to bend it, putting him perfectly in position to push up into Han’s mouth, absently trusting the squeeze of Han’s hand around his cock to keep him from choking the man, the friction of Han swallowing around him making it hard for him to concentrate on little more than the rapid thump of his heart, the warm weight of Han resting against his other thigh.

He can feel Han, all the same, the Force rippling around him like the damp air thick with his open-mouth panted breaths, determination and desire and urgency winding around his own arousal, bright and hot as the twin suns at their shared apex, discomfort flitting across Han’s thoughts like a shadow when Luke pushes up too hard, _hunger_ warming like a blaster shot when Luke moans and shivers at the dual sense of lust wrapping around his spine and blossoming into heat as it drops to his groin, his cock throbbing like it does when he’s deeply turned on and stroking himself. And he can _feel_ Han swallowing around the precome that surges up his length, the slickness of it mingling with Han’s saliva, and it’s more than he can handle, his mind going blank in the wash of the Force that envelops him, bright blinding white that warms into the glow of orgasm, his back bowing off the bed and hands tangling mindlessly in Han’s hair as he spends himself in Han’s mouth, heart pounding and body shaking, the tightness of Han’s hand on his cock and palm pressing against the back of his thigh anchoring him like lights in the darkness of the dunes back home, a lifetime away.

He shivers and cries out weakly when Han takes him fully into his mouth one last time and draws him out on a long, hard suck, coaxing out the last dribbles of semen, lingering to lick at the tip of Luke’s cock while Luke twitches and goes limp beneath him, Han’s eyes dark and cheeks flushed when Luke breathes out on a sigh and looks down the length of his own body at him, heart pounding and skin hot still with the rush of orgasm.

“That -- that was --” he starts, awkward and breathless still, grateful when Han saves him from putting words to it, the older man licking his lips as he prowls up Luke’s body to to kiss him on the mouth, and that’s much better than talking, much _easier,_ Luke closing his eyes and reaching down with languid, comfortable desire, following the line of Han’s hip inward, wrapping his hand around the thick length of Han’s erection, warm through the fabric of his trousers, the wet-spot of precome smearing against the heel of his hand making him shiver, a shadow of his earlier arousal passing through him like a shock-wave.

He takes Han’s mouth in a slow, artless kiss as he works him through his trousers, breathing hard and watching, entranced as Han pulls away to shove his trousers and pants down, just enough for Luke to stroke the full length of him, Han’s cock bigger than he’d expected, heavy in his hand. He pulls Han down to kiss him again, his skin hot with wanting as Han thrusts over him in a parody of fantasies Luke’s entertained over the years, the reality of it messier and heavier than he’d imagined it would be, but not lesser or disappointing for it. He feels his own cock stirring just as Han’s arousal starts to cool between them, the touch of his hand obviously not enough to get Han off, and rolls Han off of him and scoots down the length of the bunk, yanking Han’s trousers and pants all the way down as he goes, stroking Han’s cock a little once he’s settled, the sight of his own hand wrapped around another man’s erection as unreal as it is compelling.

“Tell me if I’m doing this wrong,” he says, angling Han’s cock towards his mouth and licking at the head, tasting the sharp salt of precome. “I’ve never done it before.”

Han answers him with a moan that rushes across Luke’s senses in a wave of arousal as hot as liquid metal, his cock jerking and leaking as Luke pulls it into his mouth, sucking at the head, swallowing the slickness coating his tongue. He pushes himself up on his elbows, trying for an angle that allows him to take more than just a few inches of Han’s cock into his mouth, but it’s considerably more difficult than Han made it look, swallowing him whole, his cock hard and salty in Luke’s mouth, pushing at the back of his throat hard enough that he gags on it the first time Han thrusts forward, and his teeth are in the way, painful when he curls his lips around them to keep from biting, and he can’t really move his hand up and down when he wraps it around the inches he can’t possibly get into his mouth, but it’s apparently enough, Han moaning and moving under him, restless and breathless and not faking it, his arousal warm when Luke settles into a steady rhythm and reaches for him through the Force, using what he can feel to inform what he does with his tongue, how tightly he grips Han with his hand.

His lips are swollen and his jaw starting to ache when Han starts thrusting into his mouth in a careful, steady rhythm, spreading his legs wide, his thighs trembling with restraint to either side of Luke’s head. Luke swallows around him, his own cock lengthening at the restrained thread of _wanting_ he feels as he drags the hand not wrapped around the base of Han’s cock down, brushing Han’s sac and moving lower, feeling for the sensitive pucker of Han’s ass and rubbing at it gently at first, then harder when Han makes a strangled noise and reaches down to grip the wrinkled twisted sheets beneath him, brightness projected all around him through the Force that tells Luke _just_ how much he likes it, his arousal sharp and tangible, making Luke dizzy.

“More’a that and I’m gonna come in your mouth,” Han warns him, his voice breathless and strangled, Luke’s cock coming fully erect at the sound of it. He makes a high keening sound scarce minutes later and grabs Luke’s hair, bucking up hard as Luke gets his first ever mouthful of semen, the sharp, bitter taste of it taking Luke by surprise, his eyes squeezed tightly shut as he forces himself to swallow it down, gulping at Han’s erection and rubbing his finger against Han’s ass while Han shudders and gasps beneath him, moaning breathlessly as he pulls at Luke’s hair.

 _“Gods,_ Luke,” he breathes, pawing at Luke’s shoulders until Luke figures out what he wants and pushes himself up the bunk to take Han’s mouth in a kiss, the narrowness of the bunk making it impossible for him to do anything but look utterly uncoordinated. Han rolls him hard enough that his back smacks into the duraplast wall behind him, making it shudder, probably bothering whomever has the room next to them, but he’s too distracted by the feel of Han’s tongue in his mouth to care, sucking at Han’s tongue as they kiss, his hands fretful in the wrinkled linen of Han’s shirt, bunching it as he tries to push it up to feel Han’s skin underneath.

He’s dizzy from the kissing when Han pulls away and climbs out of the bunk, giving Luke a compelling look at his body as he kicks his pants and trousers off his ankles, his shirt tossed aside as an afterthought, his cock soft against his balls as he climbs back into bed, the low light in the room catching a scar that traces a line up his hip to his lower belly that Luke wants with single-minded intensity to trace with his fingertips, with his tongue.

He doesn’t, Han distracting him by being a cuddler, surprisingly enough, pulling Luke against him with a sigh that echoes in the gentle warmth Luke can feel coming from him without putting too much effort into reaching out through the Force to feel him. His chest hair tickles Luke’s nose and his thigh isn’t the most comfortable thing Luke’s ever lain against, and the room is cool, uncomfortably so now that Luke isn’t sweating and panting like he’s run a mile in the afternoon sun, but he stays where he is, reveling in the feel of being nude with another man, indulging in the unexpected affection Han shows, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. He’s actively shivering when he pushes away from Han to tug at the blankets folded at the foot of the bunk, his skin prickled with gooseflesh as he draws the blankets up over them, settling in against the warmth of Han’s body once again, Han laughing softly as Luke shivers against him.

“Keep forgettin’ you’re from Tatooine,” he says when Luke asks what’s funny, trying (and failing) to glare at him from his position, pinned against Han’s side. “You’d be a block’a ice on Corellia, up in the north. Gotta toughen you up if you’re gonna insist on stickin’ around, bein’ a hero like you are.”

“I’m just cold,” Luke objects.

Han jostles him again. “Feel pretty warm to me,” he says, and it’s just sweet enough, just enough unlike the swaggering space-pirate affect Han wears like a garment that Luke’s embarrassed for him, feels a mirrored awkwardness underneath his own that he recognizes as Han’s, flavored with enough self-reproach that he can’t help but press his face against Han’s chest, hiding the grin that tugs at his mouth. He distracts himself with reaching across Han’s body, feeling blindly for the scar he noticed earlier, his amusement at the man lying beside him tempered by his concentration and the small flare of victory he feels when his fingertips find the raised line of the scar, Han shifting a little as Luke traces the scar up to his belly, then back down again, slow and almost meditative.

“Heard from your princess that you’re leaving,” Han says, just as Luke’s starting to drop off to sleep, warm and sated and weary from the sleep he didn’t get the night before. “Takin’ her with you, she said.”

Ben hadn’t mentioned Leia accompanying him, though Luke finds he isn’t entirely surprised by the notion, his heart-rate picking up a little as Han’s words sink in, sleep falling away like dust tumbling from his hair. “Dagobah,” he says, pushing himself up on his elbow so he can look at Han. “There’s a Jedi master there. Ben wants us to train with him.”

“Sounds like fun,” Han says, deadpan.

Luke smiles. “It’s overdue,” he says. “Ben said we should have been learning years ago.”

“Yeah, you’re such an old man,” Han says, rolling his eyes. “You’re what, eighteen, nineteen standard years?”

“Twenty,” Luke says, a stretched truth, but he figures it doesn’t matter, pleased when Han drops it. “They used to train Jedi from childhood. Before the Empire.”

“Yeah, lots of stuff changed when the Emperor took over,” Han says. “Dunno about a daycare full of kids who can read minds, though. That sounds like something I wouldn’t want to have around.” He reaches up and combs his fingers through Luke’s hair, his fingertips warm against Luke’s forehead. “Creepy enough in an adult. Stuff’a nightmares with kids.”

“It’s not mind-reading,” Luke says. “It’s more like -- feeling. Picking up on others’ emotions.”

Han frowns. “How’d that work with the _Death Star,_ then?” he says. “Or that laser-droid you were playin’ with on my ship? They don’t have feelings.”

“No. That’s different.”

“Like telekinesis or somethin’?”

Luke shakes his head. “No. It’s more ...” He frowns, struggling to put words to it. “It’s like being able to see, but much more clearly than my eyes can see, and farther away,” he says. “When I took that shot, I could _see_ it, the angle of the canons, the exhaust port, the distance -- I could feel it, as it was happening. Like I was placing the torpedoes by hand in slow-motion.”

Curiosity and disbelief bled through with disquiet curls around the back of his mind, for all that Han’s face is perfectly impassive when Luke opens his eyes and considers the man lying beside him. _The perfect gambler,_ he thinks, the humor of it making him smile, Han spotting his amusement before he’s had a chance to relax back at the man’s side, his expression pressed safely against Han’s chest.

“All right, see, now I feel like you’re readin’ my mind and laughin’ at me,” Han grumbles, jostling him hard enough that Luke sits up, an apology on his tongue that comes out as quiet laughter instead, the combined warmth and strangeness of sharing Han’s bed making him feel almost drunk, his head spinning a little as he leans close to kiss Han on the mouth, Han grumbling at him the entire time.

“I have no idea what you’re thinking,” he promises. “But I _am_ laughing at you.”

“I’ll give you somethin’ to cry about next,” Han threatens, rolling him, but all he does is cover Luke’s mouth in a kiss, his hand dragging a ticklish line down Luke’s side, curling around Luke’s thigh and pulling, angling their bodies perfectly for Luke to feel the stiffness of Han’s erection pressing to the side of his own.

Luke doesn’t cry. But he doesn’t end up getting much sleep, either.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey look, we’re at an M-rating. Only took me ~~mumblemumblesixchaptersmumble~~ and ~~coughalmost40kcough~~ to get there. Oh, and since I wrote the smutty bit back when I was still working on chapter ... 3, I think? and lots of plot happened between there and here, I had to go through and rework the whole thing. GO ME. *sob*

Whatever, the guys got to love on each other. I’m happy, they’re happy, hopefully you’re happy too.

Fun fact of the day: Wedge is 5’8”, putting him a delightful inch _shorter_ than everyone’s favorite vertically challenged Jedi from Tatooine. I was playing fast and loose with things by assuming those’re Wedge’s clothes Luke’s wearing at the end of Ep IV, but then I looked up Wedge’s actor and just _cackled._ True story.

Also, I love Luke Skywalker (anyone within three zip-codes of me knows this) but dear _gods_ a man with his pretty blonde hair shouldn’t wear that shade of yellow. Ever. Pretty sure he only wore it because a) you don’t wear the PJs that pass as clothes on Tatooine to a royal awards ceremony and b) if someone like Wedge Antilles tells you that you look nice in his clothes, you wear the man’s clothes, no questions asked.

Also- _also,_ I intended for Yoda to show up in this chapter but then there was some plot and some porn and I aim for 5-7k words for each chapter and we’re at 5.8k with this installment, so ...

This fucking story is taking over, please send help.


	7. Master (?) Yoda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke pulls his aunt close, holding his breath against the ache threatening to crawl from his chest into his throat and choke him, the sound and feel of his aunt breaking down and crying against his shoulder tearing at him like a sandcat’s claws, his eyes burning with it.
> 
> “Thank you,” he says around the lump in his throat, his voice breaking as it’s not done since he was a teenager, “for taking care of me. And protecting me. I’ll be all right. I promise. I’ll train and I’ll come back and we’ll be okay. All of us. I _promise.”_

** Chapter Seven **

_Master (?) Yoda_

Han is asleep when Luke wakes early the following morning from a dream about falling through thin clouds that whisper his name as he falls, slipping quietly from Han’s loose embrace and dressing as quietly as he can in the trousers and shirt and jacket and boots he borrowed from Wedge, his face heating a bit at the thought of pulling his commanding officer’s clothes on over the memory of Han’s mouth and hands and sweat and semen on his skin, but he tells himself that it’s no worse than the cold sweat that gathered on him as he stood before his aunt and uncle and Ben and Leia and countless others, nothing he can’t wash away in the cleaner Han showed him, deep in the belly of the base.

He steals one last look at Han’s sleeping face before he leaves, baffled affection warming in his chest at the sight of the man sprawled across the narrow bunk, beautifully nude and only barely covered under the blanket Luke had woken wrapped in, Han’s mouth open in a soft snore, his hair falling messy across his forehead. He can feel the braided tangle of dreams lurking too deep for them to disturb the quiet rest hovering over and around Han like the thick haze of not-quite-liquid water over the grass at dawn on Yavin IV when he reaches for Han through the Force, the color and taste and feel of Han through the Force strikingly familiar to him, like a dream of his own, half-forgotten. The temptation to return to the bunk and taste one last kiss on Han’s mouth presents itself like a physical pull, desire and craving twisting like ravenous hunger under Luke’s skin, but he resists, biting his lower lip hard enough to hurt as he opens the door as quietly as he can and steps out into the corridor, his footsteps as quiet as he can manage until he’s well enough away that he’s certain Han won’t hear him, allowing him to fall into his natural stride, his footfalls loud by comparison in the silence of the corridor around him.

His aunt and uncle are asleep still when he returns to their quarters, Aunt Beru curled against Uncle Owen’s back, an extra blanket rumpled around them, pushed down in the warmth of shared sleep. Luke slips into the room without making a sound, pulling his boots off the second he’s inside the room so that his footsteps make no noise whatsoever, but his aunt stirs to wakefulness anyway, rolling over and pushing herself up before Luke’s gotten more than three steps into the room, her eyes dark and unfocused as she blinks at him, her voice rough as she says his name.

“Are you all right?” she says when he confirms that it’s just him and apologises for waking her. “What time is it?”

“I’m fine,” Luke tells her. “It’s early. Go back to sleep.”

She doesn’t, which isn’t a surprise to Luke, carefully pushing the blankets away, tucking them around Uncle Owen as she turns to sit on the edge of the bed, her gaze lingering on Luke long enough that it makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, hyper-aware of what he must look like to her as he changes out of Wedge’s clothes and into his own trousers and tunic, the material soft but woefully thin for the cool air of Yavin IV, his hands clumsy as he pulls on the coveralls he wore under his flight-suit as well, his hand lingering just for a second over the poncho Han loaned him, but the thought of wearing Han’s clothes after spending the night wrapped up nude in Han’s embrace feels awkward and intimate under his aunt’s watchful gaze. He folds it neatly, instead, sets it aside with Wedge’s jacket and trousers and shirt, his skin prickling a little as he settles into a meditative pose, closing his eyes and picking through the threads of thought and feeling for the strongest, the Force vibrating around him as he does, filling his senses.

“Your uncle and I wanted to talk to you last night,” his aunt says as he’s drawing his second steadying breath, the sound of her voice shattering his concentration, for all that she speaks softly, considerate of his uncle snoring softly still in their shared bunk.

Luke opens his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I was talking with Han and lost track of the time.”

“Yes, Ben told us that’s where you were,” Aunt Beru says. “I’m glad you made a friend, here.”

Luke feels his face heat, glad for the dim light of the room. “Yeah.”

Aunt Beru takes a slow breath, something like muted heartbreak threading across Luke’s heart as she exhales, her hands nervous in her lap, fidgeting like a pair of rock-lizards arguing over an insect. “We spoke with Ben for some time last night, while you were out,” she says, just as Luke’s opening his mouth to ask her what’s wrong, worry just beginning to build under his breastbone. “He told us that you’ll be leaving us to train with his former master on Dagobah. To learn, as your father did, how to use and control the gift you have. He said that we’ll be leaving as well, your uncle and I, but we won’t be coming with you. I’d not expected we’d go with you, of course, but I _do_ worry about you, all the same.” She looks down, smoothing the fabric of her skirt, a nervous habit as familiar to Luke as the wrinkles around her eyes as she offers him a sad, pale smile. “Silly of me, I know.”

And she’s wrong, the sadness in her voice heavy with more feeling than Luke could hope to untangle, so he pushes himself up and crosses the narrow room and sits beside her on the bunk, puts his arm around her shoulders when she leans against him, her hair warm when he rests his cheek against it, the coarse texture familiar to him, like a distant memory of home. “I wish you could come with me,” he hears himself say, his throat tight around the words. He swallows, squeezing his aunt’s shoulder once. “Did Ben say where you and Uncle Owen are going? Is Ben going with you?”

“He wasn’t sure of our destination just yet,” Aunt Beru says, “but he promised that he’d find us work wherever we end up. We’ll be all right.” She pulls away from Luke’s embrace, looking him in the eye. “You could come with us, if you wanted to, Luke,” she says. “You don’t have to go to Dagobah to learn or fight in any wars, or -- or _any_ of this. Just because your father --”

“He knows about me, Aunt Beru,” Luke interrupts. “He knows who I am, he knows I’m his son. I can ... I’ve _heard_ him. In my head. Calling me his son. If I stay with you or Han or Ben or the Rebellion, he’ll find me, and he’ll hurt anyone I’m with.” He wraps his hands around hers and squeezes, her grip a comfort when she squeezes back. “If I go to Dagobah and learn more about the Force, if I learn how to control it and shield myself from it, then I can protect you and Uncle Owen and everyone. Even from Vader.”

His aunt considers him for what feels like a very long time, then pulls her hands from his, reaching up to cup his cheek in her palm. “My little Luke,” she says softly, her eyes filling with tears and voice uneven as she speaks. “My golden starchild. I knew from the first time I held you in my arms that this day would come. They _told_ us it would, that this would happen, that it was your fate, and yet ...” She shakes her head, tears tumbling from her eyelashes to splash against her cheeks. “I had hoped that we could protect you from it when it did. I wanted so badly to. To spare you from all of this. From _all_ of it.”

Luke pulls her close, holding his breath against the ache threatening to crawl from his chest into his throat and choke him, the sound and feel of his aunt breaking down and crying against his shoulder tearing at him like a sandcat’s claws, his eyes burning with it. She feels so _small_ in his arms, small and fragile and vulnerable and soft, nothing like the force of nature he adored and trusted and looked up to as a child, accepting with a child’s naivete his place as the center of his aunt’s and uncle’s world as if it were the natural way of things, a simple fact of life to be taken for granted, a blessing so plain to him now that it burns under his skin.

“Thank you,” he says around the lump in his throat, his voice breaking as it’s not done since he was a teenager, “for taking care of me. And protecting me. I’ll be all right. I promise. I’ll train and I’ll come back and we’ll be okay. All of us. I _promise.”_

\---

When the time comes, he doesn’t want to go.

His uncle stands at his side in the echoing expanse of the hangar and grips his shoulder and prays with him, the familiar prayers of protection and knowledge and peace and wisdom Luke has recited with him since he was barely old enough to stand on his own, the words heavy now with meaning he’s never before heard in them, his uncle’s voice rough, broken and laced with pain and anger and powerlessness that makes Luke ache, trembling as he wraps his arms around his uncle on impulse, his eyes squeezed tightly shut as he listens to the beat of his uncle’s heart, hidden just for a moment from the world in the strength of his uncle’s embrace once surprise has worn off enough for his uncle to hug him back.

His aunt strokes his hair as she hugs him goodbye, her eyes red-rimmed but dry and a small smile on her face when he steps back and watches her hug Leia as well, murmuring soothingly when Leia presses her face into Aunt Beru’s shoulder and shakes, crying silently, her hands gripping Aunt Beru’s outer jacket hard enough to wrinkle the fabric, her panicked sense of loss dizzying when Luke reaches for her, too potent for his senses to process, as thick and rich as blood in his mouth.

Wedge shakes his hand and orders him to take the X-wing he flew against the _Death Star_ on his journey, laughing like he’s in pain and pulling rank when Luke tries to refuse, pulling Luke close enough to press their foreheads together when Luke relents, thanking him awkwardly for the unexpected gift. Wedge grips him hard and orders him to take care of himself and come back stronger than ever, pushing him away when Luke promises to do so, Wedge’s voice a shade too loud as he orders Luke to _get the hell out of here before I order you to stick around,_ his shoulders squared and back straight as he walks away, the perfect soldier.

And Han ...

“I had a look at your vacation destination this morning,” Han says when Chewbacca finds Luke loitering outside the _Falcon_ and herds him into the cockpit, growling something at Han that makes Han throw a spanner at him, grumbling curses in Corellian when Chewbacca catches it and doesn’t give it back, taking it with him as he leaves. “Your grandpa’s got awful taste in planets.”

Luke settles in Chewbacca’s flight-seat, his heart-rate picking up at the sight of Han lying in a sprawl at his feet as he works on some system or another, the memory of touching and tasting the scarred skin hidden away under Han’s shirt and vest and trousers rising unbidden to the fore of his thoughts, bringing heat to his face; not a bad feeling. “What’s wrong with Dagobah?” he says.

“What’s right with it?” Han wants to know. “It’s smaller than this little rock, and it’s wetter, warmer. Which I know probably sounds great to you, the _warmer_ part, anyway, but warm plus wet ain’t as nice as you’d think. Add that to the lack of civilization and technology and it’s a bog in space. I’d place bets on you drowning within your first week, ‘cept that’s not a bet I’m interested in winning, and I have this real bad habit of winning bets I place.” He looks Luke up and down twice and sighs. “Should’a taught you how to swim here while I had the chance.”

“I’m not going to drown,” Luke tells him, for all that Han’s words have him worrying that he’ll do just that, his history with water outside the familiar tanks and regulators of Tatooine decidedly negative.

Han shrugs. “I’ll pull you out if you do,” he says, going back to whatever he was doing before. “Like all the other times you’ve tried to drown yourself.”

Luke ignores the obvious baiting. “I didn’t know you were coming with us.”

“Just for a drop-off,” Han says. “Can’t take your princess with you in your X-wing, or the old man, and they’re going with you because _somebody_ has to be around to keep an eye on you. Keep you from doing something stupid.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure.”

“I _meant_ for bringing Leia and Ben along,” Luke says.

Han twists to look at him, a grin on his mouth as he winks at him. “I know.”

He reaches up to yank on the wires he’s exposed, cursing and yanking his hand away when sparks fly, enough smoke curling up around whatever he does next that Luke rolls his eyes and slides out of the flight-seat to crouch down beside him, squinting in the acrid smoke at the mess Han’s made of what looks like it might be an auxiliary weapons system. It’s unfamiliar to him, nothing like the systems he used to repair in the equipment used on his uncle’s farm, but it’s similar enough to the wiring in the latest 3PO unit’s artificial limbs that he spots the problem almost before Han does, pointing to it just as Han’s reaching over to yank the problem wire out of the port Luke assumes Han crammed it into in the first place.

“Yeah, I got it,” Han says.

“Just trying to help.”

Han snorts. “When are you not,” he grumbles, a strange sort of unhappiness glowing softly around him when Luke pulls his hands into his lap and reaches for him, Han’s thoughts more tangled than the wires he’s rearranging, the sparks that fly when he crosses the wrong wires unsurprising to Luke, worry building in him at the thought of Han repairing or flying anything, as distracted as he is.

He’s not figured out how to bring it up before he hears footsteps approaching, his back protesting mildly as he pushes himself up, away from Han, raising his hand in a little wave when Leia steps into the cockpit, Ben just behind her. Her eyes are less red than they were the last time he saw her, but she looks sad, _feels_ sad, even though Luke’s not trying to feel her through the Force, and she doesn’t linger, turning and walking away before Luke’s had a chance to climb to his feet or say hi.

“You’ll want to see to your ship, Luke,” Ben says, stopping him when Luke steps forward, intent on finding Leia and asking if she’s all right, even though he knows she isn’t, has a few solid guesses why. “We’ll be departing soon. No need to delay any further, now that all the goodbyes have been said.”

Luke’s throat tightens. “All right,” he says around the impulse to find his aunt and uncle and hug them one more time. The sight of Han sitting up, watching him, helps some, but not enough, Luke happy to escape the _Falcon_ and focus on situating Artoo in his X-wing, the little ‘droid beeping at him curiously when Luke hesitates before climbing the ladder into the cockpit, looking around the hangar one last time, just in case his aunt and uncle are around. “It’s nothing, Artoo,” he says once he’s got his helmet on and Artoo is repeating his query. “Do we have the launch coordinates?”

“Just sent ‘em to you, kid,” Han’s voice answers him. “Hope they gave you a ship with a good padded flight-seat. This’s a long one.”

Luke scrolls through the jumps, lifting his eyebrows in surprise at the long list scrolling before him, Han’s assessment of their trip an understatement, if anything. “Got it,” he says. “Ready to launch when you are.”

“Yeah, yeah, you and everybody else on board,” Han complains. “Just sit tight. We’ll be on our way soon.”

\---

Technically, Han isn’t wrong about Dagobah’s similarities to Yavin IV, Luke is quick to discover as he navigates his X-wing out of the jump from lightspeed and into the thick, heavy atmosphere, flying blind and gritting his teeth as Artoo squeals in his ear and frantically maps a descent pattern that only scratches up the outside of the ship a bit, the ghostly fingers of trees protruding from the solid, shifting water-smoke like something out of a nightmare, the ground sopping with it, mostly hidden from view as Luke kills the engines and pulls off his helmet, eyes wide as he looks around, safe under his ship’s transparisteel shell.

It’s a small planet, he learned from the reading he did between jumps. Part of a larger cluster of planets and moons with a gas giant at its center, and it’s more water than land, with no technological development to speak of, no cities or towns or even small settlements recorded from the most recent survey, putting it lower on Luke’s List of Places to See than Yavin IV would’ve been, had he paid attention well enough during his lessons to have known that either planet even existed in the first place. Beyond that, though, it’s as similar to Yavin IV as Han is to Leia, though far less appealing than either of Luke’s new friends, the air thick with wetness as he opens the dome of his ship and pushes himself up out of his flight-seat, arms outstretched for balance as he sets a tentative foot on the fog-slicked outer shell. Artoo beeps at him nervously as the ship shudders and tips under him, very nearly throwing him into the steaming bog of water his sensors read as solid ground but to his eyes is anything but, the only land he can see thickly covered in more trees than he would’ve thought possible in such a small space, the ground littered across with fallen leaves and vines, all wet and dark, the sky hanging heavy above him, close enough that he can reach up with his hand to touch it, swallowing as the swirling mists move and bend around his fingers as if sensing him, curious in their curls and wisps.

He’s snapped from his fascination by the sudden shift of his X-wing, his back and neck snapping painfully as he loses his balance and his footing and lands ass-first on the folded S-foil, Dagobah’s marginally stronger gravity happy to pull him down into the water, which is far warmer than he’d expected it to be and deeper, too, enveloping him up to his navel, his flight-suit heavy and awkward as he pushes his boots against the soggy branch-littered bottom of the bog and claws at the water, pulling himself towards the trees and land, the weight of his flight-suit testing his balance as he pushes himself to his knees, trying (and failing) to wipe his hands clean of foreign plants rotting into the slime that covers the water. He looks back at the ship just in time to see Artoo rolling neatly down the closed transparisteel dome of their X-wing, beeping admonition at him to be more careful, the ‘droid’s binary so thick with disapproval that Luke could swear, just for a moment, that he were hearing his aunt’s voice instead of a ‘droid’s.

He throws a handful of twigs at Artoo when Artoo wants to know what’s got him smiling, despite the mess he’s managed to get himself into within minutes of landing on the surface (a new record, according to Artoo’s estimates). “Nothing,” he says. “Just thinking.”

Artoo blats aspersions against Luke’s intelligence, his systems whirring softly as he collects data on his surroundings, reading and cataloguing and analyzing with enthusiastic curiosity. He whistles shrilly when he picks up the _Falcon_ on his sensors, his exoskeleton rocking a little as he rolls along the uneven ground, and Luke follows him, trusting Artoo’s sensors to find them solid ground better than he trusts his own eyes, his skin crawling with nerves as he moves through the tangle of trees and vines and discovers, pushing one very thick vine out of the way, that some of the vines are _alive_ and full of hiss, Artoo beeping at him not to touch anything when he breaks into a jog to catch up, hunching his back to make himself as close to Artoo’s height as possible.

“I don’t like Dagobah,” he confides in the little ‘droid once he can see the _Falcon’s_ running lights glowing in the heavy mist.

Artoo beeps an agreement, then reminds Luke that it’s _Luke’s_ fault they’re on the planet in the first place, which isn’t true so Luke smacks him on his dome and tells him to be more respectful to the guy who makes the decisions whether or not to repair any damage that befalls him.

“Besides,” he says, overtaking Artoo in his eagerness to reach the _Falcon,_ “coming here was Ben’s idea, not mine.”

Artoo answers him with the ‘droid equivalent of a snort and reminds him that he made friends with Wedge before they left Yavin IV, insisting that Wedge would be happy to do maintenance for him if Luke ever abandoned him, and Luke would throw something at him (again) except that the hatch to the _Falcon_ hisses before he gets the chance, too busy walking up the gangplank to greet Leia and Han to rise to his ‘droid’s baiting.

“You’re soaked,” Leia says, eyes going wide as Luke holds out his hand to her.

“Artoo fell in,” Luke says. “I had to save him.”

Leia narrows her eyes at him as Artoo whistles at him in indignation. “Your R2 is right,” she says, “you’re a terrible liar.” But she takes his hand anyway, her expression going grim as she walks down the gangplank at his side, taking in the darkness creeping unnaturally fast over the fog-drenched landscape. She winces when she steps onto the marshy ground for the first time, her hand tightening around Luke’s as a creature swoops overhead, clicking as it goes, the echoes ominous as the creature fades back into gurgling, chirping twilight.

“You’re sure this is where we’re to train?” she calls out to Ben, the old man making his way slowly but steadily down the gangplank, Han and Chewbacca standing back, Han slowly shaking his head in disapproval as he takes in the sight before him.

“Quite certain,” Ben says, tucking his hands into his robes and striding over to join Luke and Leia. “Master Yoda retired to seclusion on this world upon the fall of the Old Republic and has since trusted me to carry the secret of his whereabouts. He has surely sensed your presence and will be eager to meet you. Come, let’s go and greet him.”

He sounds almost _excited,_ of all things, moving like a man considerably younger than he is as he walks past Luke and Leia and Artoo, seemingly unconcerned by the branches and vines barely visible in the hazy twilight, the burble of water mere inches from the trailing hem of his robes. At Luke’s side, Leia sighs, glancing back at the _Falcon_ as she does, the temptation to return to the dry air and relative cleanliness of Han’s ship as clear and easy to pick up from her as the subtle scent of her perfume, as plain to Luke as the guilt she feels following on the heels of her moment of weakness, her hand tightening on his as she turns back and takes a step in the direction Ben went, pulling Luke along with her.

“You two be careful,” he hears Han call after him and when he turns to promise they will, he feels the pull of restraint under his breastbone, something like longing and regret heavy in the sensation. Han’s standing halfway down the gangplank, one hand wrapped around a hydraulic strut, Chewbacca’s paw on his shoulder, maybe restraining him, maybe comforting him. Impossible to know.

“You too,” Luke calls back.

Han dips his head in a nod, and it’s only the pressure of Leia’s hand tightening around his own that keeps Luke from giving in to the temptation to go back and kiss Han on the mouth, his chest aching as he turns his back on the man, squinting into the darkness ahead.

He keeps his hand clasped around Leia’s as they walk, the paltry glow from the britelite on his flight-suit barely bright enough to illuminate their path, forcing them to go slowly, Leia only jumping once when she puts her hand to one of the vines that isn’t a vine, its shift and hiss making Luke’s skin crawl, even as he puts up a brave facade and wraps his arm around Leia’s waist, pulling her close. They fall easily into sync with one another, walking along the marshy, treacherous ground, moving together as one, Leia’s warmth at Luke’s side a pleasant distraction from his wet flight-suit chafing at him, stiff and cold against his skin. All the same, he’s pleased to see light ahead of them when they reach the top of a little hillock and spot a rounded hut that would honestly look like little more than a large boulder were it not for the light flickering in the carved-out windows, the curl of smoke rising from what Luke assumes is supposed to be a chimney. The mist around them has flattened into a pattering rainfall by the time they reach the stone hut, Ben knocking carefully at the wooden slat door, the trickle of cold water against the chafed skin of Luke’s neck making him shiver as the door opens to reveal a creature that stands no taller than Luke’s knee, hunched and withered and leaning on a cane, looking up at Ben with what Luke assumes is an expression of disapproval, its enormous ears twitching as it heaves a long-suffering sigh.

“Master Kenobi,” it says by way of greeting. “Gone back on your word, you have. An unexpected betrayal. Disappointed I am.”

“I’ve not gone back on anything, Master Yoda,” Ben says, his voice light with laughter despite the rain drenching him, plastering his hair to his skull, his robes hanging heavy with water. “I’ve brought you a present, in a manner of speaking. Might we come in and speak with you a while?”

The creature -- Yoda, apparently, who couldn’t look less like a great Jedi master to Luke’s eyes if he tried -- purses his lips and narrows his eyes at Ben, considering him. Then, he says _no_ and slams the door in Ben’s face, splattering mud across Ben’s robes.

Ben turns to give Luke and Leia a reassuring smile, then turns back and pounds on the door with increased enthusiasm. “I’ve brought you students, Master Yoda,” he says when Yoda -- who _still_ looks nothing like a Jedi master -- opens the door and fusses at Ben to go away. “Two very powerful young humans who are in need of your wisdom and guidance.”

Yoda looks past Ben to Luke and Leia, the two of them bedraggled and clinging to one another in the rain. Luke tries to stand up straight and look impressive, but Yoda’s looked away before he manages, so he goes back to slouching, hoping to trap some heat between himself and Leia in the process.

“Too old they are,” Yoda says. “As am I.”

“Now, now, they’re not so old as you might think,” Ben says. “Just shy of twenty standard years, if my calculations are correct, and very open to learning. I’ve shown them the basics to gauge their abilities, and can with great certainty vouch for their capacity, each of them separately, and the pair of them together.”

Yoda looks at them once again, only this time Luke can feel him _really_ looking, the pull at the back of his mind no longer unexpected or foreign to him, disconcerting and unwelcome though it is. He carefully lowers his mental shields and waits, glad of Leia’s warmth at his side, her body going rigid against his as Yoda considers her as well, and when the pressure recedes, he rests his cheek against her hair, her hand flexing where it rests against his chest, picking nervously at the front of his flight-suit. And they must pass the test, whatever that means, because Yoda grumbles something and steps away from the door, Ben motioning to Luke and Leia to follow as he ducks inside.

The hut’s blessedly warm inside, for all that it’s cramped, clearly built for a creature Yoda’s size, not Luke’s or Leia’s, and certainly not Ben’s. Two fires flicker at either end, casting shadows that dance and melt into each other, the smell of smoke and vegetation heavy on the air. Luke unzips his flight-suit and steps out of it when he sees Ben shrug out of his outer robe, glad to be freed from the wet fabric despite the sodden state of his coveralls underneath. He takes Leia’s jacket from her as well and hangs it beside his flight-suit, nudging her gently towards Ben when she shivers, Ben taking her hand and guiding her over to sit by the fire, quietly ordering Luke to sit close to the fire as well.

He settles into a meditative pose with a sigh that speaks to the discomfort Luke is sure he’s suffering, as old and soaked as he is, his voice soft and reverberating in the close walls of the hut as he tells Yoda of the ‘droids and Luke’s family’s escape from Tatooine, of Leia’s captivity on the _Death Star_ and the destruction of Alderaan, all over a meal of soggy greens soaked in a pungent broth. He tells Yoda about the destruction of the _Death Star_ and Luke’s use of the Force in taking the lethal shot while Yoda serves them all a hot, bitter beverage that smells wonderful and tastes awful, only the blessing of heat it provides making it palatable to Luke, tells Yoda of Luke’s reaction to the explosion, of Leia’s nightmares following, of the visions she’s seen, the knowledge she’s gained through them, painful though they’ve been.

“Strange, to see how differently they have engaged with the Force,” Ben says, when Yoda moves the frown he’s been giving Ben to Leia, considering her long enough that Luke gives in to the temptation to sneak a glance at her as well, her face impassive, only a hint of restraint and control wrapped around her thoughts and feelings when he reaches for her through the Force. Impressive as always, Luke thinks. True royalty. Stronger in so many ways than he could ever hope to be, her grace and poise as effortless as they are genuine, as natural to her as breathing.

“Undisciplined, this one is,” Yoda observes, pulling Luke from his thoughts by jabbing him in the arm with his cane. “Wild. Like a beast, this one, hmm?”

Luke feels his face go hot. “I wasn’t thinking anything bad,” he tells Ben, not trusting himself to try to look Leia in the eye.

“Distracted always, young humans are,” Yoda says. “Especially the males. Difficult to train because of it. Susceptible to the Dark Side, when not focused on the Light.”

“All the more reason he _should_ be trained,” Ben says before Luke can object that he’s _not_ distracted, that he’s just tired from the flight and worried about Leia, no less so than Ben is. “A boy of his power should not be left to choose a path out of ignorance or by chance, or worse, as a result of the attentions and intentions of a less savory master. Nor should the girl -- she’s quite better at hiding her feelings, but they are just as strong, and her connection with the Force is just as powerful, and just as much a potential threat as Luke’s.”

Leia raises a single eyebrow, at that, her expression otherwise unchanged. Ben offers her a fatherly smile, resting one of his hands on Luke’s shoulder before turning his attention back to Yoda. “They have done much already in the struggle against the Emperor, Master Yoda,” he says. “I ask you to help them learn so that they might do more. They could bring balance to the Force, if properly trained. Perhaps bring Vader back to the Light, if such a thing is possible.”

“Possible many things are through the Force,” Yoda says, nodding. He looks from Luke to Leia, then back again, closing his eyes and drawing a long, slow breath through his nose. “Train them I shall,” he says when he opens his eyes once again, his face set in a serious expression, gaze locked with Ben’s as if in competition with the man. “But remain here with me they must, undisturbed and uninfluenced. Dangerous they will be, if incomplete the training is when they leave this place.”

Ben nods, pleased “I leave them in your care, then,” he says. “Besides, they’ll not be able to go anywhere once our main transport departs. Luke’s ship can carry only one pilot and no organic passengers, so far as I know.”

“That’s right,” Luke says.

“Very well,” Yoda says. “Then rest they will, and tomorrow we begin.” He pushes himself to his feet with the help of his cane as Ben stands and follows him to the far side of the hut, Yoda’s ears twitching as Ben pulls his robes on and reaches for the latch on the door. “Three months you will give them,” he says, when Ben bows to him, respectful and reverent. “More they may need, but after three return you will.”

“Yes, Master,” Ben says, bowing. He looks at Luke and Leia when he straightens, warmth in his blue eyes, and dips his chin in a nod. “Be well, you two,” he says. “I will see you again soon.”

Then he’s gone, twin threads of loneliness winding through Luke’s consciousness as the door closes, his own and Leia’s feelings close-matched and gentle, warmed with affection for the old man. Leia reaches over to lace her fingers with Luke’s, their hands resting on his thigh as Yoda returns to sit across from them, considering them in contemplative silence.

“Rest you must,” he says. “Responsive to the mind a tired body will not be. Come. Stand. Make room for sleeping you will, by the fire, yes. Warm and nice, good for a rest.”

He hobbles along before them, pointing with his cane and giving instructions, Luke and Leia moving the table into a corner and chairs over by the door, spreading out blankets across the newly cleared space and adding wood to the fire, Luke’s body considerably more tired by the time Yoda seems satisfied and orders them to lie down than he was at the start of the meal. His mind wakes in a hurry when he processes Yoda’s latest order and realizes that he intends for Luke to share a bed with Leia as he’s done in the past with Han, as he did just the night before with Han, the pile of blankets suddenly woefully narrow to his eyes, too intimate and close and _presumptuous,_ the implications of it tainted by his memories of sharing Han’s bed, his heart beating a little faster with anxiety he can _taste_ as he argues with Yoda, insisting that he be allowed to make a second bed.

“Have no more blankets, do I,” Yoda tells him sternly, “and too tired you are to mate tonight. Do not argue. Lie down you must. Sleep. Be _silent.”_

Luke can _feel_ all of the blood in his body rush to his face at the mention of _mating,_ of all things, Leia just as flushed when he steals a glance at her, but she laughs about it and pushes him towards the bed when she catches him looking at her, calmer and more adaptable as always, her body unbearably warm and distracting when she lies down beside him on her side, her back to him.

“Goodnight, Master Yoda,” she says when Yoda shuffles past them, climbing up into what Luke could only describe as a nest, worn blankets piled up in a heap and a tattered old pillow tucked into one of the corners by the far wall. “Thank you for your willingness to train us.”

Yoda makes a sound somewhere between a grunt and a sigh, a sound so similar to the noise Han made when Luke kissed him the first time that it makes Luke’s chest twist with homesickness for the man, loneliness that doesn’t abate, despite Leia’s closeness. He reaches for Han through the Force, on a whim. Swallows around the lump of disappointment that rises in his throat when there’s no answer, his faint hope that Han might be able to sense him, to respond to him, flicking out like a flame guttering in a strong breeze.

“Sleep,” Yoda says when Luke fidgets, seeking without much success a peaceful center, a distraction from his thoughts. “Tomorrow, we begin.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my country, Mothers’ Day was this past Sunday (8 May). As a non-traditional mother, myself, living very far away from my mom, with whom I am very close, Mothers’ Day is always painful for me. This chapter allowed me to bleed out some of that, and it felt bloody fabulous, no lie. God bless the Aunt Berus of the world -- maybe not mothers by blood, but mothers in heart and spirit and worry and love and pride and annoyance.

On a much lighter note, can we all take a moment to appreciate R2D2, the sassafrass mother Luke desperately needs in his life? He is legitimately my favorite character in the entire _Star Wars_ universe, no take-backs.


	8. The City (?) In the Clouds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Mm. Tempted by the Dark Side you have been, and given in to it you have. Forever it will be with you, then, and dominate your thoughts it will,” Yoda says.
> 
> “Then why are you training me?” Luke wants to know. “If I’m always going to be --”
> 
> “Because good there is in you still,” Yoda says. “Because possible balance is.”

** Chapter Eight **

_The City (?) in the Clouds_

True to his word, Yoda begins their training the following morning. _Early_ the following morning, the light outside the hut barely grey with the rays of the single sun, distant and weak and cold, despite the muggy warmth Luke breathes when he sits up, away from the cold packed earth of the hut’s floor, the stale scent of water clinging to his stiff-dried clothes. He helps Leia fold the blankets they slept on and under, his body protesting each motion he makes, tense and aching from sleeping on the floor without a proper mattress. Yoda gives each of them another cup of the bitter drink to swallow down, nodding approval when Luke drinks his all in one go, eager to be rid of it. Then he points to the door and herds them out, shuffling along behind them, down to the edge of the water.

They sit together and meditate for what feels like well over an hour, the unfamiliar path of the sun doing little to help Luke gauge the actual amount of time passed, the struggle to _not_ fall asleep as he sits still and silent with his eyes closed enough to keep him awake and alert, though annoyed and frustrated, reaching out through the Force as he meditates out of desperation more than anything else. He feels Leia beside him, struggling as well, her thoughts fractured and frantic often enough that he worries for her, guessing blindly at the source of her upset and coming up with far too many possibilities, his heart aching a little for her at the thought of how many memories she must carry that cause her pain and make her feel the anguish he can sense her avoiding, dodging like a mouse before a serpent. He feels the glow of life all around them, once he’s adjusted to Leia’s presence and reached out further, sensing presences in the trees and earth and water, innumerous life forms around him all intent on feeding and hiding and moving and guarding and seeking and hunting and mating, the fast pace of the creatures moving through the air contrasted with the slow slide of the creatures wound insidiously within the trees, strikingly different from the dart and flash of the creatures beneath the water, curiosity and potential energy surrounding the creatures he senses uncomfortably nearby, creatures capable of existing above and below the water, the true kings of the sodden little planet.

He’s learned little by the time Yoda instructs them to open their eyes and stand, the ancient Jedi’s large green ears angling forward as he considers them. He offers them no lesson, though, even though that’s what Luke is expecting him to do. Just more orders, Yoda pointing his cane in the direction of what looks like it might have once been a path, _maybe,_ and orders them to run.

“Tire the body you must if precedence the mind will take,” he says. “Focus your mind as you go, yes, and let the Force guide you. Only way you will be safe, it is.”

He cackles a little as he says it, apparently morbidly amused by the prospect of Luke and Leia running through a wilderness fraught with dangers and threats to their lives and well-being, but Leia says _yes, Master_ and takes off at a trot, so Luke keeps his complaints to himself and takes off after her, keeping pace with her with no trouble, his longer legs affording him a more restful run through what he’s pretty certain his personal hell will be like if his soul fails to ascend upon his passing.

“Do you suppose he knows what he’s doing?” he says when they reach a relatively flat stretch of land, the trees less closely grouped together, watery sunlight shining down on the more clearly through the clouds than it had been, before.

“He’s a revered Jedi Master,” Leia says, out of breath and snippy for it. “Master Kenobi trusts him. I do as well.”

Luke lets it drop, feeling chastised, but the doubts remain, heavy in his mind. He tries to focus on the source of his doubts as he runs, tries to acknowledge each and seek their roots as Ben tried to teach him to do several times over, but there are too many for him to concentrate on any one in particular, more questions and doubts cropping up for each thought he tries to process, his head spinning with it and with the heat and moisture thick in the air by the time he and Leia reach the curve of a lake, the mud and leaves giving way to sticky wet sand, Leia stopping to pant as she stares out across the water.

“The Force is strong here,” she says, looking at Luke sidelong as he joins her at the water’s edge.

He nods. “It was in the water on Yavin IV, too. Ben said it always is in water. He said that’s why I was sent to Tatooine, why he chose my aunt and uncle to look after me. He thought it might keep me from knowing what I could do. What I was capable of.”

Leia’s looking at him with an expression of pity when he looks down at her, her cheeks flushed and eyes sad. She looks out across the lake once more before turning, visibly steeling herself before taking off once again, her speed and strength apparently renewed, breaths coming loud and harsh as they run, retracing their steps back to Yoda’s hut.

Yoda considers them when they stop in front of him, narrowing his eyes and making a contemplative sound that Luke _knows_ means they’re not done running, even before Yoda speaks. Still, it’s a bit disheartening when he says _again, thrice more, and pause not you will this time,_ gesturing with his cane.

They meditate for what feels like hours after they finish their laps, Yoda taking them into his hut for a meal only when Luke’s stomach starts to growl loudly enough to be a distraction, the sleepiness after he’s eaten his fill threatening to overwhelm him as they settle in for more meditation, Leia silent and enduring at his side, her relief palpable and identical to his own as Yoda orders them on another run, a grumpy look on his face.

“I didn’t think Jedi training would be this active,” Luke says as they take off down the now-familiar path.

“I think he’s improvising,” Leia says, leaping deftly over a fallen branch. “You were falling asleep in there. Can’t sleep while you’re running.”

Luke laughs, and it feels _good._ Better than anything’s felt since they landed on Dagobah.

Still, he’s thoroughly exhausted, both mentally and physically, when the sun begins to set that evening, his mind too tired to expect much beyond the almost complete failure he has, reaching out for Leia, hoping to find her just as worn as he is. They return to Yoda from yet another run before Luke’s managed much beyond giving himself the early whispers of a headache, his entire being threatening to shut down if he doesn’t rest, and he’s grateful when Yoda pushes himself to his feet and says _enough for today, this is,_ stumping along slowly with his cane towards the hut.

“Bathe you should before you eat,” Yoda says over his shoulder as Luke and Leia fall into step behind him. “Safest the lake is, and not far. Go there you must. Bathe and clean your clothes. Yes.”

And it’s a testament to how _tired_ Luke is that his only complaint (which he studiously keeps behind his teeth, for all that he’s certain Yoda can sense it from him, decently confident that Leia can sense it from him as well) is that Yoda didn’t mention bathing in the lake when Luke was there not ten minutes earlier, necessitating yet _another_ trek down to the water’s edge. He does his best not to think about how comfortable the floor of the hut looks when he goes in with Leia to gather one of the spare sets of clothing he brought with him, the hard-packed earth appealing and tempting even without their makeshift blanket bed spread across it. He focuses instead on the promise of cleaning sweat from his skin, scrubbing god-knows-what out of his hair, from his tunic and trousers, filthier by degrees from the long day of sitting in the dirt and running, probably more fit for a biohazard bag than a wash in the cool water of the lake. He does his best to maintain focus on the positive, as Ben taught him during an early lesson on the _Falcon,_ as he walks with Leia down their now familiar running path, his knapsack bouncing against his hip as they walk, Leia quiet and tranquil beside him; a comfort.

He can feel her _shift_ as the lake comes into view, nothing physically changing when he looks at her, alarmed, but something tightening around her all the same, control and unease wrapped around her like a blanket when he concentrates, reaching out, sensing her. She gives him a cool look when he asks out loud if she’s all right, her face impassive, the practiced expression of the diplomat he’s seen working with General Rieekan, but it feels like a judgment against his intelligence all the same, his temper just beginning to stir in his belly as understanding dawns on him, slow and so obvious he’d be upset with his own stupidity if he weren’t busy blushing at the thought of stripping nude and bathing next to Leia, the two of them completely alone and exposed.

Leia sighs. “I’ll turn my back,” she says, possibly reading his feelings through the Force, but more likely picking up on the blush he can feel prickling heat across his face.

“Yeah,” Luke says, “me too.”

And he does, for all that it does him little good, his imagination happy to fill in for him an array mental images to go along with the sound of Leia undressing behind him, his heart-rate picking up at the thought of her pale skin prickling with gooseflesh as she steps into the water, the gentle curves of her hips and belly and breasts slipping beneath the surface, her nipples stiff with chill. His cock is embarrassingly half-hard from it when he submerges himself, the water considerably warmer than the water of the stream on Yavin IV, oddly still around his body, not pushing against him or rushing past him. It’s a welcome distraction, the weight of the water around him slowing his movements as he wades in deeper, out where he can sense Leia has stopped, for all that he still has his back to her. He cups his hands, lifting some of the water away from the lake, its urgency to return to the surface of the water through the cracks between his fingers fascinating to him, so much so that he does it again, the sound of the water falling into itself like the memory of music.

He draws a deep breath before lifting cupped water in his hands to wash his face, the feel of the still water in his hands so different from the rush of water in the water-shower, the sweat and oil on his face more noticeable without the slickness of the soap between his hands and his face, the filth of the day suddenly more than he can stand. He scrubs at himself, splashing handfuls of water against the places he’s touched, his skin tingling from the scrubbing, hyper-sensitive to the touch of the water, cool by contrast, the silt and sand at the bottom of the lake slippery and thick around his toes, solid enough that he tips his head back once he’s pretty sure he’s as clean as he’s going to get, his lungs burning as he draws a deep breath, drinking in the evening air, the feel of it in his throat drier and cooler than it felt when he was on the land.

The sound of Leia splashing a little, closer than he’s expecting her to be, draws his attention away from the compelling feel of the water around him, and he steals a peek at her before his rational mind can catch up well enough to remember that he’s supposed to not be looking at him, his cheeks heating when he finds her looking at him as well, frowning a little.

“You said you wouldn’t look,” she says.

“So did you,” he says, turning around once again, the water sloshing and splashing and twisting as he does, only marginally distracting him as he tries his best to focus on washing the rest of his body, resisting the urge to take another look to make sure Leia isn’t watching him rub himself down, his greater height making more of his body visible above the surface of the water, the memory of watching water drip down Han’s chest, of touching him and being touched in return after the warmth of a shared water-shower making his cock stiffen once again, swelling to full hardness as he reaches down to bathe between his legs, yanking up his mental shields as best he can when fear lances through him that Leia might reach out and see what he’s thinking -- or worse, feel his arousal and get the wrong idea about him.

By the time he’s dried and dressed and walking back to Yoda’s hut with Leia at his side, he’s more mentally exhausted than physically, shame and discomfort settling under his skin as he lies on his side once they’ve rolled out their bed and fed the fires, his back turned to Yoda and his skin prickling as Leia lies down beside him, bidding Yoda goodnight as she did the night before.

Yoda answers her with an impudent, knowing chortle that sets Luke’s teeth right on edge, his dreams fretful and peppered with the memory of water, of touch that makes him feel as if he’s drowning, breathing the depth of water into his lungs, the silt of it bleeding into his soul.

\---

For a solid week, they run.

Luke grows grudgingly used to it, just as he grows used to the heavy, wet air and the strange, bitter flavor of the plants they eat at meal times, to the struggle against weariness as he sits on the marshy ground for meditation and the awkwardness of bathing and sleeping so close to Leia, the memories of and homesickness for Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen and Ben and Han fading only marginally as time passes. He learns quickly to hold his tongue around Yoda, despite his suspicions that the grumpy old creature can hear his objections and misgivings just as clearly as if he were giving them voice. Learns to feel gratitude for the moments he manages to snatch in the evenings to look after Artoo, checking the little ‘droid for signs of damage from the wetness of Dagobah, the familiarity of Artoo’s advanced technology a welcome change from rocks and trees and snakes and bogs filling the rest of Luke’s waking hours.

He wakes on the eighth day to the sound of Yoda’s cane tapping against the hard-packed floor of the hut and rouses Leia with a gentle shake of the shoulder, an unspoken ritual developed between them from their mutual desire to avoid waking to a sharp smack of Yoda’s cane. She pushes herself up with a yawn she only kind of covers with her hand and greets Yoda politely as she’s done every morning since their arrival, pushing her hair away from her face as she helps Luke fold up their makeshift bed, winding her hair into a simple bun at the nape of her neck while Luke feeds the cook fire at the far end of the hut, his stomach growling in anticipation of breakfast, despite the disappointment he knows it will be in his mouth.

“Something new you will learn today,” Yoda says as they settle in to eat. “Ready you are for a change, hmm?”

“Yes, master,” Leia says over Luke’s emphatic _yes,_ which he follows belatedly with _thank you_ once his manners catch up to his mouth, and it’s probably the lack of good sleep and real food making him delusional, but he thinks that, just for a second, he sees the hint of what might pass for a smile on Yoda’s face.

The heavens open in a gentle, steady rain as Yoda leads them down to a little copse of trees not far down their now-familiar running path, muttering happily to himself as they walk, despite the rain dripping from his ears, plastering his wispy white hair to his head. He directs Leia and Luke to stand beside one of the larger trees, its leaves and branches providing them some shelter from the rain, then settles with a grunt on a fallen log, his cane resting across his lap.

“Very young in the Force you are,” he says, wagging his ears like he does when he’s making a joke, usually at their expense. “Babies you are, to these old eyes. So today learn like babies you will. Stacking blocks you will do, yes.”

As a joke, it’s not very funny, and as an insult, it’s not all that biting, and when Yoda stretches out his hand and starts pulling stones the size of Luke’s head out of the bog a good twenty feet away, stacking them up neatly just to the other side of the running path, Luke forgets about the verbal jab entirely, his fingertips tingling like they do sometimes when he meditates, denial and excitement twisting through him like lightning.

“Easy, this is,” Yoda says as he sets the final stone atop the others. “Do it now, you will.”

He pokes Luke in the arm with his cane as he speaks. Luke rubs absently at the sore spot and eyes the stones.

“How?” he says.

“With the Force,” Yoda answers uselessly.

Luke sighs. “All right,” he says. “I’ll try.”

“Do or do not,” Yoda says, “there is no _try.”_

Which isn’t helpful at all, Luke’s concentration fragmenting because of it as he stretches out his hand, as Yoda did, and closes his eyes. Memory is quick to assert itself, once he’s no longer got the distraction of seeing his surroundings, memory of Ben restraining him on the _Falcon,_ of Vader lifting Uncle Owen off the dull metal plating of the docking bay on the _Death Star,_ despite the distance between them. He takes a deep breath and shapes his fingers in a gripping curl as he saw Vader do, but the thought of emulating the man who calls him _son_ in his nightmares sits ill with him, so he straightens his fingers and curls them again, as if reaching out to pluck a tool off of a shelf in his uncle’s workshop, shaping in his mind the imagined texture and weight and cool of the stones. The Force twists around the muscles and tendons of his arm has he curls his fingers, gathering in the palm of his hand, concentrated like the energy building behind the torpedoes onboard his X-wing, the glow of potential power suffusing his senses. The stone resting the highest atop the others is damp from the morning rain and weighs more than he’s expecting it to, resisting when he tries to lift it, tugged securely in place by Dagobah’s gravity. He hears the scrape of it against the others, petulant and resistant, and furrows his brow in concentration, squeezing his eyes tightly shut against the weak daylight around him and imagining the stone lifting and coming to him.

It smacks him in the hand in its rush to obey him, then lands on his foot when the surprise of physical contact breaks his concentration and, by extension, his connection with the Force, his fingers and toes throbbing as he hobbles back a step, feeling foolish under Leia’s obvious struggle not to laugh at him. Yoda clucks his tongue and shakes his head in disappointment, grumbling about lack of control, but it doesn’t bother Luke like he’s expecting it to, the warmth of Leia’s amusement when she gives in and laughs touching him like a gentle embrace, making him smile.

 _“You_ try it,” he says, grinning at her.

“Do or do not,” Yoda corrects him, bouncing a little with agitation on his log. “There is no try.”

Luke rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest, his bruised hand tucked securely under his elbow as he watches Leia close her eyes and reach out her hand, as he did, her earlier amusement cooling into the thick aura of calm she projects whenever she’s concentrating, the Force vibrant with it, heavy with her desire to succeed.

She doesn’t. Not on the first try, nor the second. Not even after Luke tries to tell her how he did it and gets scolded by Yoda for being a know-it-all, even though Luke’s able to lift one of the smaller rocks without focusing his full attention on it, trying to explain to Leia how it feels for him.

“Resisting, you are,” Yoda says, hobbling over to poke Leia in the thigh with his cane, nudging Luke irritably on his way through. “Wanting to fail. Afraid of it you are, as you should not be.”

Leia’s cheeks color, her lower lip sallow where she chews at it. “How will I know if I’m using it for good or evil?” she asks Yoda. “This power -- it isn’t something I understand, and I don’t feel that I can control it. I don’t want it to control me.”

“Mmm, good questions these are,” Yoda says, stabbing his cane into the ground and leaning on it, “and not often asked early. Pleased I am.” He gives Luke a dirty look as he speaks, his ears twitching when Luke’s temper starts to rise, half-formed objections on the tip of his tongue about how he’s wondered the same things, just hasn’t bothered to ask them out loud. “The Force exists not in good or evil. Only light and dark it is. The light for defense, for help and protection. The dark for anger, for power and destruction. Good and evil -- perception, they are. Eye of the beholder, yes.”

“How do I know which is which, then?” Leia says. She sinks into a crouch, putting her on eye-level with Yoda. “The light and the dark -- they seem so similar, sometimes.”

“Train, you must,” Yoda says. “Much to learn have you still. Detachment. Wisdom. Vision beyond what you can see and touch. Yes.”

“Is that how Master Kenobi knew to warn Luke not to fly against the _Death Star?”_ Leia says, to Luke’s surprise and discomfort, the memory of Ben’s gentle warnings and the devastation he felt after ignoring them as sour and painful as ever. “Could he see what we couldn’t?”

Yoda considers that for a moment. “Possible, that is,” he says. “Young, Master Kenobi still is, and learning always a Jedi is. Difficult it has been, as separated the Jedi are.” He angles his ears at Luke when Luke moves around to crouch down at Leia’s side, the pressure at the back of his mind as Yoda considers him invasive but unsurprising.

Luke lets him in, settling into a comfortable position without bothering with his mental shields. “When I took the shot that destroyed the _Death Star,_ it felt wrong,” he says. “All those people -- I could _feel_ them dying. Just like when --” He darts a glance at Leia and swallows. “Just like when Alderaan was destroyed. I _felt_ it. So did Ben. And that’s _why_ I wanted to fight back, why I flew against the _Death Star._ They were going to destroy Yavin IV next, just because of the Rebellion. A whole planet, just for a few hundred soldiers.”

Yoda’s ears twitch. “A whole station,” he says, “destroyed for one Jedi and officers giving orders, was it not?”

Luke feels his blood go cold. “It was,” he says, the words sticking in his throat.

“Used the Force you did,” Yoda says. “Killed many because of it.”

“Yes.”

“Mm. Tempted by the Dark Side you have been, and given in to it you have. Forever it will be with you, then, and dominate your thoughts it will,” Yoda says.

“Then why are you training me?” Luke wants to know. “If I’m always going to be --”

“Because good there is in you still,” Yoda says. “Because possible balance is.”

“But you said --”

Yoda waves his hand. “No. No more questions will I answer today. Now, train you must.”

\---

After that, Luke trains, harder than he’s ever done anything else before.

Standing at Leia’s side, he moves and stacks and pushes stones until he needs little more than the flick of his fingers to direct the Force along his thoughts, the power of it as exhilarating as the feel of accomplishment until Yoda smacks him in the leg and instructs him to do the entire set of exercises again, but this time while doing a handstand, which means that he spends a day and a half doing nothing but fail to do a handstand, sore and bloodied and frustrated when Yoda casually mentions over the evening meal that the Force can be used for the manipulation of one’s own body as well as objects external to the body, and it’s such a _stupidly_ obvious solution that Luke leaves his meal and goes for a run without being told to, just to clear his head.

Yoda starts joining him on his run two days after that, complaining that Luke lacks discipline and concentration, his thoughts the most scattered when he comes back from running, and Luke doesn’t object because Yoda’s right, his presence at Luke’s back as Luke runs a welcome reminder to focus and concentrate and _not_ think about anything too long or too hard, from the ache in his knees, to the worry gathering in his chest whenever he thinks about his aunt and uncle, to the confusing affection and desire and concern he feels for Leia, watching her struggle alongside him through Yoda’s lessons. He runs until he’s dizzy and meditates with his feet in the air until he’s lost track of time and shakes his head when Artoo asks if he’s all right, offering with more sincerity than Luke thought could be communicated in binary to send a distress signal to Han or Wedge or any of the others he befriended during their brief stay on Yavin IV if Luke’s in need of rescue from the tiny green terror Artoo thinks is hell-bent on discontinuing Luke’s make and model.

“I’ll be all right,” he promises the little ‘droid, rubbing a cloth over the joint of Artoo’s left wheel-arm, clearing away the excess oil from that evening’s maintenance. “I _am_ learning. It’s just tough.”

Artoo offers the opinion that tough lessons might be good for someone with a skull as thick as Luke’s, beeping insistently that he’s not making a joke when Luke laughs.

He beeps even more insistently a week later when, on a whim, Luke lifts him up along with the stones he’s lifting for his exercises, the panic inflected in his binary almost enough to break Luke’s concentration, but Luke endures, carefully moving Artoo from his favored spot under a trio of long white-barked trees to a thatch of thick grasses not far from Yoda’s perch, his heart beating a sickening tattoo at his throat as he sets Artoo down and completes the exercise he was working on with the stones, carefully lowering his body down from the handstand he’d been holding once he’s certain the stones won’t budge.

“Good,” Yoda says, ignoring Artoo’s indignant blatting. “Control of the physical you have, but connection with the Force you still lack.” He taps one of his fingers to his own temple. “Weak, your mind still is. Train it we will. Again. _Concentrate.”_

Luke nods once and bends down, touching his fingertips to the mossy ground and closing his eyes, using the Force to balance his arms and neck and unfold his legs, his muscles tensing as he straightens his body as if smoothing wrinkles from a cloth. He reaches out once his body is straight and taut, feeling Leia first as always, her concentration rich like the chocolate his uncle brought him once from a Sullustan trader he met in Mos Eisley, deeper and more thoroughly walled off than he suspects he’ll ever have his own thoughts or feelings. He reaches for Yoda second, balancing the old master’s presence with Leia’s, imagining them as stones not unlike those he can almost _feel,_ resting cool and heavy where he stacked them, Leia’s presence smooth and sun-warmed, Yoda’s cool and damp, soft with moss.

Artoo beeps twice, a programmed response meant to indicate that he’s entering reserve mode. Yoda’s ears twitch in response, stirring the air around them. Leia exhales on a long breath, motionless even as an insect makes its way over her fingers and the back of her hand, and Luke reaches out to it as well, encouraging it to change its path with a careful push of the Force against its exoskeleton, Leia answering with a mental caress that brings a smile to Luke’s mouth, his concentration fracturing under it, and he’s intentionally slow to repair it, to push Leia from his thoughts.

Eyes closed, he breathes in, tasting the now-familiar smell of Dagobah at the back of his tongue. Breathes out, drawing the Force up his body as he does, balancing himself as he shifts his weight onto his right hand, freeing his left to rise from its place in the dirt and angle towards the stones, the Force flowing like blood through his hand as he begins his exercises once again.

On his fourth exhalation, he sees.

There’s mist everywhere, fog that burns in his nose and throat, acrid and stinking and threaded through with fear and anger, darkness exploding into light, the world spinning, only it isn’t _his_ world, isn’t the wet leaves and dirt of Dagobah shifting unsteadily under his palm, real enough that he maintains his balance, breathing evenly, using the Force to compel the blood he can feel starting to pound like thunder in his temples back into the rest of his body, forming a mental image of evenness and calm, blood warmed in his face easing back up to his heart, up his belly and thighs and calves, into his feet, warming the chill numbness he can feel in his toes --

_\-- dragging along the smooth white glaze covering solid duracrete, disorientation and terror fluttering across the trailing fabric of a black cloak, the dim light of a small room a blessing to the pain in his temple, panic like a spike ripping through him at the sight of an Interrogator centered in the room, open and loaded and ready to inflict pain well beyond the body’s limits --_

_Not real,_ Luke tells himself, his breathing audible over the burble of water and noise of insects, grounding him in Dagobah. Safe, tucked away with Yoda and Leia. Growing stronger. _Learning._ Becoming the Jedi warrior he promised his --

_\-- Aunt Beru sobbing protests that echo in the corridor before the door closes, mechanical breaths echoing in the silence that follows, the dull lighting reflected in the mask that covers the face of **brother** , of father and son and traitor and demon, murderer and torturer and threat better faced by an old man who has lived a full life than the child he promised to protect, no matter what the cost --_

At his side, Leia shrieks, the noise sharp and sudden as it rends the wet air around them, and Luke tastes blood as his concentration shatters and he falls in a graceless spill of limbs, his lower lip bleeding as he pushes himself up and looks wildly around for Yoda, for all that Yoda hasn’t moved from his spot next to Artoo, his long ears twitching as he shakes his head and launches into a lecture about discipline and concentration.

“Expected more from you I did,” he says, waving his cane in Leia’s direction. “Just as distracted as this one you are.”

“I saw a something,” Leia says, her voice strained and shaking as if she’s been shouting, for all that she’s barely spoken a dozen words since they woke that morning, “A vision. I saw a city, surrounded by clouds.”

Luke feels his heart drop into his stomach. “I saw it, too,” he says. “The same thing, just now.”

“Ohh?” Yoda says, narrowing his eyes at them. “Know this place, do you?”

Luke shakes his head. “No,” he says, glancing to Leia who shakes her head as well.

“Friends you have there?” Yoda wants to know.

Leia nods, her hands balled into fists tight enough that her knuckles are white with it. “Family,” she says. “They were in pain. Tortured. By Darth Vader.”

Yoda closes his eyes, his brow furrowing a bit in concentration. “Mm,” he says, after what feels like a very long moment. “It is the future you see.”

“The future?” Luke says, panic pushing him to his feet before he’s had the chance to _think,_ his mind fuzzing like static over a bad comlink. “Then I have to go to them. They need me.”

“Go?” Yoda says, his calm affect grating against Luke’s senses. “Know you not where they are. How then you will go to them, hmm?”

Luke falters. “I’ll contact Han,” he says. “They said he was taking them somewhere to find work. He’ll know where they are.”

“Perhaps protect them he will,” Yoda says. “Faith in your friend you should have. And return to your training you must. Yes, training. No more talking.”

“I can’t just _leave_ them to -- to what I saw,” Luke argues desperately, “they’re my _family.”_

Yoda looks at him, _really_ looks at him, the push against the back of Luke’s mind harder than usual, more aggressive and warm with what feels like the kindling heat of anger, but Leia interrupts him when he opens his mouth to speak, her voice as calm and quiet as the water behind her, flowing across the damp morning air like poison.

“Bespin,” she says, and her eyes are closed when Luke turns to look at her, her face as pale as death, eyelids fluttering as she concentrates. “That’s where they are. They’re in Cloud City, Luke. On Bespin The Outer Rim.” She opens her eyes, meeting his gaze without blinking. “Go. _Please._ They need you.”

Luke goes without another word.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s just address the bantha in the room here: I don’t like Yoda in canon. When he first shows up and is all hilarious and quirky and kinda Kermit-y, he’s wonderful, but then he goes all bland and boring and grumpy. Also, his pedagogical methods _irritate the life out of me._ As an educator, I would never, _ever,_ tell a student to have a single go at a new task, then do it for them and tell them that they’re a failure for not getting it on the first try. If Yoda had wanted to truly teach Luke how to use the Force for the telekinetic manipulation of physical objects despite mental reticence and self-doubt, he should have let Luke have a go at lifting the X-wing, then done it for him to show him that it is indeed possible, and then _dropped the damn thing right back down in the swamp_ so Luke could work on it and practice it and _learn_ from it on his way to success.

I have a sign on my office door that reads: “The master has failed more times than the student has even tried.” I stand by that and point it out to my students and advisees alike on a regular basis. Yoda, you _suck_ at teaching.

*cough*

Also, there’s [a side-story written to go along with this chapter](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6845143) that I’ve had written for a few days now and couldn’t post until this was done and posted, so of _course_ this took its sweet time coming together, and if you don’t think I get grumpier than a wet wookiee when I have _perfectly good smut_ just sitting around, all HTML-tagged and _not bloody posted_ then you probably don’t know much about me at all. *huff*


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